The Lylat Campaign
by Yoshimaster
Summary: Twenty four years after the defeat of Andross, the Cornerian government and a new Star Fox team find themselves the next target in a galaxy wide war for complete domination. [FINISHED: 11 15]
1. Diplomacy

I

From amid the rubble floating silently in space, came a solitary shuttle. Its markings were unmistakable, and given the contents of its earlier transmission, its purpose was clear.

Admiral Reccal Moss, a green, scaly creature watching from his quarters in the capital ship, _Harbinger_, could not help but smile. So far, this had been the most difficult campaign of all for the conquest for the Karzen system. More soldiers and spacecraft had been lost in the Trengast campaign than in all the others combined. A worthy effort on Trengast's part, but far from significant. The aftermath of the final battle was proof of this.

"Admiral Moss," the intercom squeaked.

"Yes," Reccal said, not taking his eyes off the wreckage drifting about outside. The utter totality of Trengast's defeat was so beautiful to him that he spoke as if in a trance.

"Trengastian President Bernard has just docked."

"Good. Escort him to my private office."

Reccal stood for a few moments more, watching his own forces swoop and dance about the dead, twisted lumps of metal, like piranhas swarming around pieces of sinking meat. Then, after taking up a glass of champagne and toasting the dictator's health, departed into his office.

Within minutes, the president of the Trengast system was standing in Reccal's office. Reccal stood and greeted him with a smile.

"Welcome," he said. "Please, sit down. Would you like a drink? I've just opened a bottle of champagne. It's in the other room. Will you have one? No? Very well, then."

Reccal sat down across the desk from President Bernard and set his glass down. Reaching into one of the drawers, he whipped out a single sheet of paper and handed it to Bernard.

"What's this?" Bernard said weakly.

"The treaty, of course," Reccal said, taking a sip from his glass.

Bernard waved the paper in his furry hands. "Sort of thin for a treaty."

"Well, read it and see what you think."

Bernard's eyes ran down the page, skimming over the long, formal introductions, landing on a single line just above the place for him to sign:

I, President Bernard of the Trengast system, surrender the Trengast system, all military units, all planets and government properties contained therein, all formal titles, and all satellites, artificial or natural, including everything contained therein, to the Empire of Karzen.

Bernard looked up at Reccal and tried his best to look calm. "Bold, aren't we?"

Reccal chuckled. "Well, we're experienced with this kind of thing, and boldness is something that comes with experience," he said. "So. Need a pen?"

Once the former president was gone, Reccal strode proudly into the communications room, and asked the technicians there to set up a transmission between the capital ship _Harbinger_ and its home planet, Karzenia.

"It may take a while, sir," said the chief technician. "Would you rather wait until we're closer to Karzenia for a better transmission?"

"Absolutely not. Our lord demanded that I contact him immediately after the handover of Trengast to us was final. Therefore, we are already late."

The technician nodded slowly, and proceeded to initiating the contact. Within the hour, a fuzzy hologram of the Karzen dictator stood in the center of the communications room.

"Well?" said the hologram. Although distorted, the voice still carried the impatient and even dangerous aura that Dictator Vladimir Nerome always spoke with.

"The handover of Trengast is complete, sire," Reccal said, loud enough for the words to echo clearly across billions of miles of space into Nerome's ears, but not so loud as to hint at insubordination.

The dictator smiled thinly. "Very good, Moss," he said. "Now, bring your fleet to the nearest service station and prepare for your next campaign."

Reccal was startled. "Another campaign, sire?" he said carefully.

"Lylat."

Reccal cleared his throat. "My lord, I fail to see the wisdom in attacking Lylat," he said. "I cannot help but recall their triumph over Emperor Andross's forces, a…"

"And what about it?" Nerome interrupted. "Must I remind _you_ that Andross's attack on Lylat was nearly a success? He conquered all but one planet, Corneria. And the only reason why Corneria managed to destroy Andross's forces was because of a handful of mercenaries."

"Star Fox," Reccal muttered.

"You have your orders, Admiral Moss," the dictator said. "I trust your judgment and strategic cunning will win Karzen another victory."

Reccal bowed before the hologram, and the transmission ceased.

II

The enemy had arrived. Fox McCloud glanced down at his radar screen, where five red blips, forming a "V" shape, were closing in around a single blue dot: his own Arwing. Due to unavoidable events, he, used to fighting with help on either side of him, was alone. His heart pounded rapidly and the controls were damp with sweat.

The enemy suddenly dispersed, scattering and firing their engines so that in a moment, Fox could see nothing but star-dotted space. He cut the engines and pulled hard right, just as a stream of laser blasts burst through where he had been a moment before. At least one ship was already on his tail. If he waited any longer, all five would be there, and that would spell certain doom.

He gunned the engines and pulled back on the controls, creating weak artificial gravity inside the cockpit as he swept over the ships, until he was going the other way. Once the maneuver was complete, he saw that a single ship was headed straight for his. Stunned by Fox's sudden maneuver, the ship did nothing… while Fox's laser blasts cut it into scrap metal.

A moment later, the others were on his tail again. Fox's ship rocked violently, and the ship's computer chirped the deadly news: Right wing damaged.

Fox could barely fly now, and he certainly couldn't do a barrel roll to avoid blasts. In a last effort, he pulled back on the controls, intending to perform a weaker version of his previous maneuver, but this was anticipated early on by his enemies. As a vicious barrage of laser blasts rocked his ship, spawning countless alarms and flashing lights, Fox could do nothing but shield his face.

The cockpit went dark. Moments later, the darkness was replaced by a dim red glow. Fox sighed.

"I'm really losing it," he said.

He pushed the cockpit door open and stepped outside into a small training room, with a service robot attending to the computer consoles lining the outer wall. When Fox stepped out of the simulator, the robot turned towards him.

"Your rating is 3 out of 10, cadet," the robot's tinny voice said.

Fox frowned. "Thanks," he said. "And stop calling me cadet."

"Only cadets of the Air Force Academy of Katina are authorized to use this simulator. Identify yourself or I will report you to the administration."

Fox chuckled. Katina was millions of miles away. Fox, now a general in the Cornerian Army, had ordered a private simulator from Macbeth to be installed in the training room of his penthouse on Corneria. But since he didn't specify exactly how customized he wanted it to be, he was sent a standard simulator, complete with a service robot who naturally assumed Fox was a cadet, since it hadn't been programmed otherwise. Messing with its mind was one of Fox's guilty pleasures.

"You go ahead and do that," Fox replied.

The robot went silent. Finally, it said to itself, "The Air Force Academy communication system is offline."

Fox shook his head and left the training room. He wasn't too happy about being ranked as a 30 efficient cadet, when, only fifteen years ago, he was much greater than that. But it couldn't be helped now. He was to speak at the Senate in less than an hour, and he still had to change.

In the walk-in closet, while searching for his officer's uniform, his hands fell on a particular, worn-out jacket. He pulled it off the hangar and held it in his hands, while he felt his heart wrenched by nostalgia. It was the jacket he had worn for years in his youth, as leader of the Star Fox team. It had seen battle after intense battle. It had journeyed into the hearts of giant capital ships, brushed past dinosaurs on a mysterious planet, and plunged into the maddening depths of Andross's lair. Now, it was a shell, a piece of old clothing that probably didn't even fit him anymore. In a way, this jacket _was_ Fox McCloud. At the very least, it was what remained of him. The youthful, cunning pilot, who took orders from nobody but those with big bank accounts, was not him anymore. He was an officer now. Fox McCloud, _the_ Fox McCloud, was gone.

He put the jacket back on the hanger and took his uniform, a white, well-ironed, decorated officer's uniform, and dressed.

III

The entire Cornerian senate sat in silence, intently listening to Senator Peter Tarian, a hare from Katina speaking on the most hotly debated subject currently in the Senate. In the back of the great hall was General William Pepper of the Cornerian Army, carefully taking notes.

"For centuries, we of the Lylat system have lived in peace," Peter cried, "A peace so uniform, it made the small army of Corneria useless. But since Andross attacked us, we have improved on this small army, making it efficient enough to protect our system from such an attack in the future.

"Now, after years of unbroken peace, the war mongering generals of the army and air force demand that we create a new branch of the military: a navy! They wish us to expand our already large army to ridiculous proportions. Why is that? We're in no immediate danger, are we? The reason is this: they wish to turn Corneria and the rest of the Lylat system into a military state and destroy the very foundations of our beloved Republic! I _implore_ you, fellow citizens, to vote against this proposal, so that we may return to our customary ways of peace."

The door near Pepper opened slowly. Through it came Fox, moving stealthily towards a seat next to Pepper's. Fox slipped into the seat, while Pepper threw not a glance in his direction.

"Flight simulator?" Pepper whispered, not taking his eyes off the speaker or his pen off the pad.

Fox blushed. He sometimes forgot he was dealing with a hound, and stealthy or not, a fox's scent was very noticeable to a hound. "Yeah," he whispered back. "What'd I miss?"

"Nothing much. He's feeding us another version of the 'military state' argument. I'm still taking notes, though; just in case he makes a mistake we can take advantage of later on. How'd you rank?"

"Three out of ten," Fox whispered. "The equivalent of a drunken novice with brain damage."

Pepper smiled. Just then, a torrent of applause erupted from the Senate. Pepper dropped his pen and clapped along with them.

"Are you ready?" Pepper said.

Fox nodded. When the applause had died down and Senator Tarian had taken his seat, Fox rose and approached the stand. The Speaker introduced him.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, General Fox McCloud."

Fox received little applause while he stepped up to the podium. He didn't expect any; most of the Senate was already against the introduction of a navy. Fox paused a moment at the podium, glancing around the room at all the sullen faces. At last, he began.

"To begin with, Senator Peter Tarian calls us war mongrels," Fox said. "I suppose this is partially my fault, as I spent the better part of my youth as a mercenary. However, The idea that we enjoy wars and big armies is far from the truth. We realize that Corneria and many of its surrounding planets have enjoyed peace for hundreds of years. It pains us to look back at those days and know that they are over.

"The fact is we cannot bring back the peace we once had. The war with Andross was proof of this. We barely survived that incident, and we did so with ruined cities, devastated planets, and a decimated military. We have improved our army since then, of course, but unfortunately, that will not be enough. As time and technology advance, our communication with other systems improves. We have already learned that they have large militaries, and if we do not act now, we will be virtually defenseless to attack. Peace is gone, and if we ever hope to bring it back, we must be prepared for war."

Fox left the podium. He was almost thrown back in surprise as the Senate broke out in applause, an even louder one than what it had given to Senator Tarian. Fox was beaming when he reached Pepper.

"Well done," Pepper muttered. "You've won 'em over. Let's just hope we hold them in time for the voting process."

IV

Admiral Moss paced the War Room of _The Harbinger_, while the officers under him and visitors from other ships and branches of the military sat at the table, waiting patiently.

"So," Moss muttered, more to himself than to anyone else, "Spies report that the Cornerian Senate is pending approval of a navy. That will expand the Cornerian military to three branches: the army, excellent at ground assault but useless at space battles, as seen in the Battle of Sector Y; the air force, a force good for melee combat, but one that collapses under the might of capital ships; and, now, a navy. Not only would a navy be useful for defending oceanic planets, including Zoness, Aquas, and (in a way) Corneria, but it would include titanic capital ships and even fighters, both of which would prove useful in space combat." Moss turned towards the officers sitting at the conference table. "Lylat will prove to be a formidable foe."

Moss looked from one officer to another. He whipped out his arm and pointed it at a particular lizard sitting at the table.

"Arnold! What new reports concerning that mercenary team, Star Fox?"

Wooly Arnold, one of the few mammals holding notable positions in the Karzen system, was a bear and director of the Karzenian CIA. He shuffled his papers and cleared his throat. "My men had a difficult time tracking down information about Star Fox," he said. "Almost everyone in the Lylat system knows the name, but nobody knows who the current team is."

Moss raised an eyebrow. "There's a new team?" he inquired.

"Since the defeat of Andross, yes," Arnold said. "Let's see… from what we could gather in various pubs, black market shops and the like, the team is as follows. Alec Falan, team scout and feline. Kicked out of Air Force Academy of Katina for rowdy behavior. Hired by Star Fox through advice of former team member Peppy Hare. Next: Slippy Toad, technician of an obvious species. Awarded the Andross Award three times for outstanding inventions, an award named after the brilliant scientist, Andross, before his insanity kicked in. Next: Krystal McCloud, data analyzer and fox. Married former leader Fox McCloud fifteen years ago, has since given birth to…"

"Wait, hold on a minute," Moss cried. "_Former_ leader? You mean Fox McCloud is no longer in the Star Fox team?"

"That is correct, sir. He resigned shortly after marrying Krystal, and right before being named general of the Cornerian Army. Whether his wife influenced his leave or Cornerian officials gave him the position on the condition that he leave behind his mercenary past is uncertain, but his wife _did_ remain on the team."

Moss smiled. Now that the Star Fox team was under new management, it might not be such a threat after all. "Who is the new leader?" Moss said.

"Falco Lombardi. An ace combat fighter for many years, he is an excellent pilot, but his leadership skills are terrible. We know that he left the Star Fox team several times in the past, and neither his reasons for leaving nor for coming back are known. Why Fox would nominate Falco as the new leader is anyone's guess, but since then, Star Fox has lost its place in the spotlight and has descended to the ranks of the hundreds of mediocre mercenary units in the Lylat system."

"No wonder nobody knows anything about Star Fox anymore," Moss said. "Well, then. Are they still affiliated with the Cornerian Army?"

Arnold shuffled through more papers. "We don't know for certain," he said, "But Fox McCloud is now part of the Cornerian Army, and General Pepper is known to have a certain affinity towards the Star Fox team…"

"Ok," Moss interrupted, turning around and pacing the room. "The Star Fox team may yet be harmful towards us, if the Cornerian government decides to bring them into the picture again. But with a little effort, we can get them out of the way before the actual invasion begins. Now," he said, with a nod towards Arnold, "Bring him in."

V

Fox opened the door to his chauffeur's hovercar and looked up at the towering Army Headquarters. The driving rain outside battered his door, and as it opened, rain dripped inside, soaking Fox's uniform pants.

"Shall I fetch an umbrella for you, sir?" the chauffeur asked politely.

"No time," Fox muttered. "I'm late as it is."

"As you wish, sir."

Fox ducked out of the hovercar, immediately discovering that his pants were the least of his worries. Fox's uniform was instantly soaked, and as he turned to tell the chauffeur that his mind had been changed, the hovercar glided away. Fox turned and ran, slipping more than once in a deep puddle of mud. He was dashing madly towards the welcoming doors of the Army Headquarters, when a vendor at the side of the path stopped him.

"You look like you could use a break."

Fox stopped in his tracks, and glanced at the vendor. It was a hooded creature, standing behind a steaming container protected under a broad umbrella.

"Why not rest awhile under my umbrella, and enjoy some of my homemade soup?"

Fox stood like a statue, completely disregarding the rain. There was something about the vendor that didn't seem right. Perhaps it was the fact that the vendor already had a bowl of soup ready for him. Perhaps it was because it was set up by the side of the building, a place Fox was sure was forbidden to vendors.

"No thanks," Fox said. "I'm running late."

"Are you sure? It's hot. And you're cold. Very cold."

"No."

Then suddenly, the vendor threw the bowl to the ground, smashing it to pieces and allowing the soup to mix with the rainwater. The vendor said, calmly in spite of its outburst, "Your choice."

With one last worried look at the vendor, Fox ran inside.

When he reached the top floor, where he was supposed to be, he was out of breath, drenched, and wearing a ruined uniform. The other generals in the war room, Pepper included, stared at him.

_Boy, oh boy, am I not fit to be a general,_ Fox thought miserably.

"Nice of you to grace us with your presence, Fox McCloud," said Chancellor Jerek Bennigen, standing at the head of the conference table. "And I use that term lightly."

"Apologies," Fox said. "Well, what's up?"

"'What's up'," Bennigen said angrily, "Is this." He shoved a strip of paper in Fox's face. "A report from the Trengast system claiming that they willfully handed their system over to Karzen."

"And if that's not strange enough," Pepper added, "It just so happens to be the second peaceful handover of a system to Karzen in a year."

Fox read the slip of paper and put it on the table. "Conquered?" he suggested.

"Perhaps," said another, an Avian. "But we can't take any extreme actions just yet. It could very well be a coincidence, and a false attack would generate all kinds of bad imagery about the military."

"That's right," said Pepper. "And if we're to properly defend this system, we'll need to gradually expand the military. A bad reputation won't help us achieve this goal. The best thing to do is to wait."

Fox frowned. "Why do we have to wait?" he said. "Couldn't we send some spies over there to see what's really happening?"

The Avian shook his head. "Up until a few years ago, we hardly knew those systems existed at all. Now that we're communicating better, it's possible to send little messages like this one." He waved the slip of paper in his wing. "But aside from that, very little traveling occurs. We hardly know anything about other cultures, and therefore, it would be impossible for a spy to blend in."

Just then, Pepper's comm. device began beeping. Excusing himself from the room, he answered it briefly. When he came back, a wide grin was on his face. He put the device away, stood at the front of the table, and cleared his throat.

"Gentlemen," he said, "The Senate has just approved the founding of a navy."

VI

To Fox, this meant a lot of new things.

Of course, to the average civilian on the street, it meant higher taxes. In fact, taxes would be extremely high for a while, considering massive amounts of construction and training had to be done during the first few months. But Fox didn't mind the taxes. Money, as he learned from his years as a mercenary, was fleeting, and the more of it that went to a good cause, the better.

Since the army and the air force were the only existing branches of the military, officers and soldiers from both branches would have to break away to form the navy. One of the generals would have to exchange their position for a slightly different one; and at the previous meeting, the generals had nominated Fox as admiral of the future navy.

Clapping came from all sides of the conference table.

"Congratulations, everyone," said Chancellor Bennigen. "We've made a giant leap towards a more secure Lylat."

Pepper stood up to shake Bennigen's hand, as did the Avian. Soon, everyone at the meeting was shaking hands and smiling congratulatory smiles, all except Fox.

"What's the matter, Fox?" Pepper asked, surprised. "This is a big accomplishment! You should be _ecstatic_!"

"I don't know," said Fox, looking straight ahead. "It's such a big leap… I've just barely gotten used to being a general, and now… I'm an admiral! It's quite a shock, Pepper."

Pepper nodded. "Well, my boy," he said, patting Fox on the back. "You'll have plenty of time to get used to the shock before the celebration on Saturday. Now, go home and get some sleep. The shock of your sudden promotion coupled with drenched clothes and a lack of sleep can't be good for you, you know."

"All right." Fox go out of his chair and made his way to the door. "Black tie, right?"

"Of course," Pepper said with a laugh. "Go on, get out of here."

With a nod, Fox closed the door behind him.


	2. Interlopers

I

It was a beautiful day on the planet of Katina. Rays of bright sunlight glinted off the distant metallic buildings and aircraft of the Air Force Academy, while rows of cadets in uniforms stood at attention below a band-filled stage in a nearby park. Today was graduation day for the young cadets, and the park, normally frequented only by gardeners and aging officers, was full of energetic siblings and prideful parents, whose interest in the cadets was only broken by the occasional statue and antique fighter.

"What's that one, papa?" said a young dog to his father. But the father ignored the puppy, instead dragging it by its shirtsleeve.

"I don't know," said the father dog impatiently. "But come along, now. Your brother's graduation ceremony is about to begin."

"But _papa!_"

A nearby figure chuckled softly. But father and son stopped and stared at the old stranger.

"I see your boy has taken a sudden interest in aviation," the figure said with a smile.

"Yeah," the dog grumbled. "He's taking after his brother. His brother's a cadet here, and he's going to be graduating in a few minutes, so I want to get a good seat. My name's Mr. Dreggar." The dog offered his free hand. The stranger shook it.

"How do you do." Then, to the puppy, "So, little guy, you want to know about this fighter? Well, this here's an Arwing. Now, I know you don't think that's so special, seeing as your brother probably flies one every day, but this is a _prototype_ Arwing. The first version ever to be flown by non-robotic entities. It's the same Arwing class that toppled Andross's Empire back in the day. These days, you know you're safe when you fly an Arwing. It's the best fighter out there that you can mass-produce. In this one, though, anything could go wrong, and the only thing you could rely on was your own piloting capability. Hell of a fighter. Well, enjoy the ceremony, young man. You, too, Mr. Dreggar."

The band finished playing its cheerful tunes, which was the cue for the captain to begin his speech. Dressed in his best, Brutus "Tank" Reynolds, a burly canine captain who treated his underlings harsher than POWs, climbed the steps with conceited elegance and stepped up to the podium.

"Good morning, cadets, parents, children and Air Force lovers!" Tank boomed, and with that, began a longwinded, highly entertaining speech.

Meanwhile, in a tree across the park, a young, plump tabby cat crouched precariously on a thin branch, with binoculars to its eyes and a headset on its ears. It was a year younger than the cadets graduating that day, and was supposed to be on leave for the summer. However, this cat had other plans.

"Come in, Big Dog! Come in, Big Dog!" he whispered hoarsely. "Muttonhead has begun his speech! Repeat, Muttonhead has begun his speech!"

In the sky of Katina, miles above the park, three Arwings in a "V" formation broke away from their holding pattern and began to swoop down.

"Roger that, Garfield," said Big Dog, who was not a dog at all, but a fox. "Take it to 'em, guys."

His name was Thomas McCloud, and although he was clearly the most talented cadet at the academy, Tank still treated him like garbage. He intended to settle the score, and when better to do so than on graduation day?

"That balloon better be in place, Tom," crackled the voice of the right wingman in Tom's headset. He turned, and through the thick, gleaming glass, saw the face of Alyssa Darien, looking at him through the glass of her own Arwing cockpit. "Else this whole thing will be a bust, no pun intended."

Tom forwarded the message to Bobo Simons, a.k.a. Garfield, who gave the affirmative. "It sure is, Alyssa," Tom replied. "Everything's golden. Just needs one clear shot for 'Muttonhead' to find himself covered in red paint."

"All right," said the left wingman gleefully. "Tank, your just desserts are comin' in full speed!" Tiger Dreggar, a dog, hit the accelerator until his was ahead of the other two Arwings. Tom decided to let it go, seeing that it was too late for them to make any more changes in formation.

The three Arwings were closing in on the park now. Tiger, whose Arwing was far ahead of the others, laughed like a kid with a toy gun. Tom was almost sure he could hear Alyssa rolling her eyes over the radio.

"All right, Tiger," Tom said. "Lock on your target. That's it. Now, let 'im have it!"

A report rang in the ears of those at the ceremony below as a pair of hyper beams streaked by mere feet above their heads, while moments later, an Arwing roared by, tearing away branches of nearby trees as it went. The visitors began panicking immediately, while the cadets watched the Arwing go, knowing very well who was at the controls.

"Damn it!" Tiger shouted. Tom winced as the tinny swear blasted his ears with static.

"Don't sweat it, Tiger," Alyssa said. "I'm on it."

Tom looked below, and noticed thankfully that Tank was still at the podium. "All right, Alyssa," he said, pulling away so she could get a clear shot. "All yours."

Tom watched Alyssa set her sights on the heavy, paint-filled balloon, dangling on a branch high above the podium. She waited until she was close enough for a clear shot. It was a tricky shot, she knew, one that would require her to dive between two…

A laser beam struck Alyssa's left wing, rocking her ship. "What the…?"

Tom leaned over to take a glance at the crowd below. "Ah, hell," he cried irritably. "Some geezer is shooting at your Arwing!"

"Well, how am I supposed to… Aaah!"

Tom saw it all. Within her massive fighter, Alyssa had leaned over to see who had been shooting at her. Before Tom could say anything, Alyssa struck the balloon, instantly splattering her cockpit with red paint.

"I hit someone! I hit someone!" she screamed.

"No, Alyssa, you didn't…"

"Help! Tom! I can't see! There's blood all over my…"

"It's not blood, it's…"

"I can't see, Tom! I…!"

Tom watched helplessly as everything began to unwind into total chaos. Alyssa blindly struck one of the statues in the park, clipping off her right wing. Her Arwing, already dangerously close to the ground, began to lose altitude. The crowd was wild with terror, while the old geezer continued to take shots at the Arwings.

"Tiger! She's taken damage! Get over here, _now!_" Tom shouted.

"I'm too far away, Tom! It'll take some time!"

Alyssa's fighter was only a few feet from the ground now. Without a second thought, Tom accelerated, ignoring the branches that smacked into his windshield, until he was side-by-side with Alyssa. He turned slightly, so that his left wing was under Alyssa's mangled right. Then, ever so gently, he turned to starboard, his left wing nudging Alyssa's craft upward, until it was level.

"All right, Alyssa, now, begin your landing pattern," Tom ordered.

Alyssa obeyed without a word. When she was slow enough, the hatches beneath her craft gave way to repulsorlifts. Tom swooped away and watched. The landing was rough, but Alyssa succeeded in bringing her damaged craft to a halt on a lawn outside the park. Tom watched as Tank and the cadets rushed to her aid.

"Thanks, Tom," Alyssa said, shaken yet relieved. "I'm all right."

"Now all we have to worry about," said Tiger, who was now flying side-by-side with Tom, "is hell, courtesy of Tank Reynolds."

"I hear ya, Tiger," Tom said with a sigh. "I hear ya."

II

Fox walked briskly through the golden hall of the Ritz Corneria, the most glamorous ballroom in Corneria City. He turned to the reflective marble wall on his left, and watched his distorted reflection: an orange Fox, with hints of gray hair in his head, dressed in a tuxedo and carrying a speech paper in his gloved hand.

_If I saw myself like this twenty years ago,_ Fox said to himself, _I would have put a blaster to my head to prevent it from occurring. _Fox recalled with a laugh how he and his fellow Star Fox team members had declined dressing formally for the celebration of the defeat of Andross, wearing instead their grimy, tattered piloting clothes. Why Pepper liked them so much, Fox had no idea.

When he reached the door to the main ballroom, the butler there acknowledged him with a smile, and politely opened the door. Fox walked inside.

The room was large and already festive, as much as a formal party could be. Gossip could be heard coming from the mouths of carefree officers' wives, and so could the hearty laughter of fat cat politicians.

"Would you care for a drink, sir?" asked a waiter, holding a plate of champagne glasses. Fox took a glass with a thank-you smile.

"Ah! Fox McCloud! So good of you to join us!"

It was Pepper, also dressed in a tuxedo, holding his second glass of champagne in his right paw. Behind him was a frog, popping an hors d'oeuvre in his mouth.

"Hello, Pepper," Fox said.

"Oh, Fox," Pepper said, gesturing to the frog. "I'd like you to meet Commodore Jerry Python."

Fox shook the frog's hand with a smile and a "How do you do."

"He'll be commanding a fleet beneath you in the soon-to-be navy," Pepper said. Jerry nodded.

"Good!" Fox said cheerfully, taking a sip from his glass. "So, what kind of experience do you have?"

Jerry cleared his throat. "Well," he said. "I am a native of Aquas, and there, I was admiral of the local navy for ten years. Also, I might add, my father fought Andross on both Aquas _and_ Zoness."

"No kidding?" Fox said, fighting the urge to point out that Jerry's father lost both battles.

"Yes," Jerry said. "He was a real war hero. So was my uncle, who actually managed to board one of Andross's capital ships and…"

But something else had captured Fox's attention, something he caught sight of briefly before it was obscured by more careless guests.

"Excuse me for one moment," Fox said, patting the frog on the back. He walked across the ballroom, excusing himself as he bumped into and squeezed through various guests, until reaching his destination, only to discover that the object of his attention had disappeared. Before he could ponder its existence, a finger tapped his shoulder, and upon turning around, saw it standing before him.

"Krystal!" he cried.

Krystal McCloud, dressed in an elegant white dress, smiled happily. "Hello, Fox," she said. Fox noticed that her accent was still not fully polished, but he didn't care. He lunged forward and embraced Krystal tightly.

"Oh, Krystal, it's been too long!" he muttered. "You look great!"

"You do, too," Krystal said. "How have you been?" But before Fox could respond, Krystal started laughing.

"What is it?" Fox said, alarmed.

"Listen to us!" Krystal exclaimed. "We sound like old friends, not husband and wife."

Fox chuckled, shaking his head with a blush. Then, as he watched, Krystal was joined by Falco Lombardi, then Slippy Toad, and finally, Alec Falan.

"Hey, McCloud," Falco said, gulping down a glass of wine. "Nice tux."

"Nice leather jacket," Fox replied. "Did you actually _wash_ it just for this ceremony?"

"Nah," Falco said, letting the gambit slide. "I like how it is. Washing it makes it seem foreign."

Fox shook his head. "Well, what are you guys doing here? I haven't even heard from you in almost a year! And, after all, I know you're still not happy with the idea of me being an officer…"

"Oh, come on, Fox," Krystal said, with her nagging tone of voice. "Do you really think we'd give you the cold shoulder for so long? We know this is an important time for you, and would spare no expense to come and see you!"

"Yeah," Falco said wryly. "We wouldn't miss seeing you screw up in the middle of your speech for the world!"

"Well," Slippy said, speaking for the first time, "_I _wanted to see some of the blueprints of future naval ships in the art gallery. That stuff is fascinating! Of course, seeing you become an admiral is priceless, too. I guess."

Fox laughed, and turned to Alec Falan. "And how've you been, Alec?" he asked.

The cat shrugged. "Ok, I guess," he said.

Fox shook his head and smiled. He was a shy kid, but from what Fox had seen and heard, Alec was one terrific pilot.

A high-pitched squeal came from the front of the ballroom, causing all to cover their ears. It ended a moment later, and Pepper, standing at the microphone, began to speak.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm glad you could all come," he began. "As you know, our biggest goal in recent history was to establish a third branch of the military: a navy. And, for those of you carefully following sessions of the Senate, you know how badly the odds were stacked against us that we would achieve this goal. But, thanks to several persuasive speeches, including one by Mr. Fox McCloud over there, we managed to change the minds of many pessimist senators and win the approval of two-thirds of the Senate. And now, in front of everybody tonight, I would like to introduce the admiral of the Cornerian Navy. Fox McCloud!"

Applause filled Fox's ears as he held up his speech paper in his right hand. Falco elbowed him in the ribs.

"Break a leg, Fox," Falco said. "Or an arm, whichever suits the moment."

Fox walked down the ballroom to the stage, where Pepper was gesturing to him. Fox stepped up to the microphone, put the speech paper on the podium, cleared his throat, and opened his mouth to speak. Just then, there was a sudden commotion at the entrance of the ballroom, where a pig had come bursting through with a look of terror on his face.

"There's been an explosion outside!" he shouted. "One of the docking platforms! Platform 18, it looks like!"

Falco grimaced, Krystal gasped, and Slippy put his hands on his face. To Fox, the collective gesture said one thing.

"That's ours."

III

The Star Fox team stood at the edge of existence, dressed in formal wear and looking down into an abyss. Fox came running behind them, stopped with a heavy heave of breath, crouched down, and looked.

The bridge connecting the docking platform to the building had been severed, leaving the edge black and mangled. That alone was a sign that the explosion left nothing intact. Fox leaned forward and saw the Great Fox, laying in a thousand blackened pieces on the ground, four stories down.

Fox stood up slowly. He took a careful glance at the Star Fox team near him. Their reactions were varied. Krystal looked horrified, although not in any way showing signs of emotional distraught. Falco was definitely pissed, clenching both fists and shaking them at his side. Alec was as horrified as Krystal was, although his was more out of fear. But Slippy, dear old Slippy, took it the hardest. He had been with the ship the longest, and as a technical guy, his attachment to the Great Fox was akin to that of an old friend. Tears streamed freely down Slippy's face, and his big lips quivered.

"Sabotaged," Pepper growled from behind.

"I don't know how," Krystal said weakly. "We didn't tell anybody where we were going, and we left for Corneria rather suddenly…"

"Why!" Slippy bawled. "Why would they do such a thing? I mean, we were _obviously_ not on board, so if they wanted to kill us…" He fell to his knees and put his hands over his eyes, sobbing. Krystal and Fox watched him with pity.

"They got the Arwings," Falco muttered with a scowl. "And… ROB."

"We will compensate you for your loss, I assure you," Pepper said, putting his hand on Falco's shoulder. "We have lots of Arwings, all state-of-the-art…"

"Yeah. Thanks." Falco's voice was like acid, actually causing Pepper to recoil.

"Listen," Fox said to Krystal. "You guys can stay with me, while we investigate this. It's a nice place. It'll help you take your minds off this for a while."

Krystal nodded. Fox turned to walk back to the ballroom, while the Star Fox team continued to stare at the wreckage.

Suddenly, Falco crouched down, turning his head so only one eye looked down. "What in the…" He turned around and disappeared. A few minutes later, he appeared again four floors down, coming through the door nearest the wreckage.

"Falco, what are you doing?" Krystal called.

Falco didn't respond. He climbed over and through the wreckage, until he reached a chunk of the landing platform. He bent down beside it and picked up a small, black object. He twirled it in his fingers, examining it.

"What is it?" Krystal called.

"An eye patch," came the reply.

IV

"Star Wolf?" Pepper cried. "You think _Star Wolf_ is behind this?"

Pepper and the Star Fox team were sitting around a glass coffee table in Fox's penthouse, while Fox himself was busy preparing hot drinks for them all.

"Want to see the patch again?" Falco held up the black piece of cloth.

"I saw it," Pepper said irritably. "It doesn't prove a thing. I'm sure there are thousands of scumbags out there who wear eye patches."

"Are there any other scumbags with eye patches out to settle a vendetta with us?" Slippy retorted.

Pepper sighed and leaned back. "Look," he said. "Have you guys forgotten the work you did on them on Venom? You say you sent all Wolfen II's to the ground. And even _if_ one of them managed to survive the crash, there's no way they'd survive outside the security of their aircraft. Venom is a harsh planet, with an atmosphere of noxious gases and a terrain of hard rock. Now, here we are, twenty-some years later. No one has heard of Star Wolf _since_ Venom. You really think they just popped up out of nowhere and trashed your ship?"

"Just because no one has heard of you," said Falco, "Doesn't mean you don't exist. You guys haven't heard or seen from us for years. And yet, here we are."

Fox came from the kitchen with a platter of hot cider. Everyone took a cup. Fox sat down in a lounge chair near the table.

"Fox," Pepper said, after placing his cup on the table, "You're a reasonable person. You manage to fit logic into everything you do, be it fighting in the fray of a space battle, or persuading a Senate to permit the induction of a navy. Do you think it's possible that Star Wolf is still alive and at large?"

Fox took a sip from his cup, leaned back, and sighed. "Logic tells me no," he said. "But if I've learned anything in my life, it's that logic doesn't always apply. For years as a child, I was told that dinosaurs no longer exist. Yet, I found myself on a dinosaur _planet_, where most of the dinosaurs actually talked. Then, a while later, I encountered Andross in orbit over the planet. I saw Andross perish on Venom, so logic would tell me that he was long dead. But he wasn't. So. Could Star Wolf be alive? If this is one of those cases where logic doesn't apply, then, yes, they could be alive."

The room was silent. Then, Falco said, "Well put, McCloud."

Pepper snorted. "Well, _I_ won't accept that explanation just yet." He stood up, stretched his arms and yawned. "We'll begin the investigation first thing tomorrow morning. Mr. Lombardi, Mrs. McCloud, don't you worry, I'll have four of my best Arwings delivered to you, as well as a transport until you get yourselves another ship. In the meantime, I must be going. Farewell."

Pepper walked off. The slam of a door was heard in the background.

"He didn't even try your nice cider!" Slippy cried.

Fox chuckled. "Just add water, Slip," he said. When Slippy looked confused, Fox tossed him an empty packet of powder.

"Ah," said Slippy, standing up. "Well, I should be goin' to bed, too. G'night, everybody!"

V

Admiral Moss sat in his private quarters on board the _Harbinger._ It was now day two of his journey to Lylat, and if his scientists' calculations were correct, they should be arriving any moment now. He put his hands to his chin, crossed his legs, and waited.

As if on cue, the intercom by his seat switched on. "Admiral Moss, we are entering the Lylat system now," the officer said.

"Good. Bring the ship out of light speed and send the orders for the fleet to assemble." He switched the intercom off, stood up, and left the room.

When he made it to the main bridge, every order had been executed. The main view port showed star-speckled space, instead of the nebulous mess hyperspace had to offer. Outside, he saw the glorious Karzen fleet, waiting patiently in perfect formation. Moss recalled with pride the stats of his fleet. Twenty capital ships, the _Harbinger_ included. One hundred and fifty frigates, ships a fifth of the size of capital ships but with greater firepower, were there, as well as several small transports. Then there were the fighters, the ships that really made the fleet. There were twenty thousand interceptors, thirty thousand defenders, five thousand bombers, and one thousand scouts, distributed evenly within the one hundred and seventy larger ships.

If they didn't win through cunning, they would surely win through the advantage of numbers.

"All, right, commander," Moss said. "Remember the plan. A fourth of our forces are to be sent to Macbeth, where they will provide a feint attack. Frigates and interceptors are to provide the bulk of that attack force; we want to save the majority of our bombers for the real target. Now, another fourth of the fleet, the _Harbinger_ included, will stay here as backup and a buffer between Karzen and Lylat.

"The remaining half of our fleet will go to the target planet. They have their orders; the bombers are to destroy buildings and ships, while living targets should be left," and Moss nodded towards the transports, hidden among the giant frigates and capital ships in the fleet, "to Mr. Krumptin's 'Blitz Forces.' Carry out the orders, commander."

The commander did so. Within moments, the fleet's size had shrunk considerably. Moss smiled.

"Allow me to propose a toast, gentlemen," he said to the officers on the bridge. "I feel another victory coming along."

The officers laughed heartily, and applauded Moss while he took out another sealed bottle of champagne.


	3. Tremors

I

The rocky planet of Macbeth was coming to the end of another successful day. Officers and overseers of the E-107 Arwing Production Facility prepared to shut the place down, while a cargo train, carrying the last shipment of ore from a nearby mine, chugged by in the dusky background.

"It's about time to close the doors," said Chief Overseer Brock to his assistant, dropping his cigar on the mesh catwalk and crushing it with his foot. "Shut down the machines."

"Yes, sir."

While the other walked away, Brock went to the docking bay, where he waited for the first shuttle to take him to the dormitories across the establishment. He hadn't waited more than five minutes, when through the airtight glass, he saw the shuttle, slowly moving towards the airlock.

He never saw what hit him.

One moment, the shuttle was slowing to a stop in front of the airlock, and the next, the thing exploded, destroying the airlock and shattering the airtight windows, sending shards of metal and glass into Brock's flesh. He was literally thrown across the room, out into the main factory, where he hit his head against a metal pole. He fell like a dead fish, lying in a warm puddle of his own blood.

The factory was suddenly alive with activity. Workers, overseers and officers ran madly towards various emergency units, while sirens shrieked and a monotonous voice said, "Warning: Airlock failed. Ventilation contamination imminent. Warning…"

The assistant came rushing to Brock's aid, helping him to his feet and placing an oxygen mask over his mouth. The assistant shouted something, but Brock was so dazed, and the sirens were so loud, he heard nothing but a faint mumble. The assistant dragged Brock towards an emergency chamber, where several others were waiting.

But his efforts were futile. Another bomb was dropped, falling through the skylights and landing on the center of the production line. None survived.

In the skies above, a cold, helmeted face looked down at the smoldering remains of the E-107 Arwing Production Facility. "Target successfully destroyed," he radioed to his superiors. "Beginning feint attack."

Thus, the interceptors, frigates, and occasional bombers began an attack not designed to destroy, but to alarm. Those in the establishment below ran like frenzied ants, avoiding bombs and laser blasts that weren't aimed at them. The attack force had its orders: not to leave until the Cornerian military arrived.

II

Fox McCloud awoke to his face being warmed by the early morning sunlight streaming in through the window. He opened his left eye, only to shut it again quickly. He stretched and yawned, and then nearly fell out of bed at the touch of fur beside him. He had forgotten how the Star Fox team, including Krystal, had met an unfortunate event the night before. In fact, he thought with a grin, he had almost forgotten how the night had ended.

Fox wrapped himself in a robe and walked over to window. Outside was Corneria City, painted red with the light of dawn. Bright rays of light streamed from cracks between buildings, ending at a bright orb just above the mountains. He casually looked to the left, where he could just barely see part of his own penthouse, and even the landing…

"Whoa!" he cried aloud. He went to the bed and rubbed Krystal's shoulder. She sat up groggily and stared at him. If it wasn't for his excitement, Fox would have laughed at the sight of her; he was sure, now, that she wasn't a morning person.

"What is it?" Krystal mumbled.

"Your birthday's come early!" Fox said with a laugh.

Krystal frowned at him. "What?" she said.

"C'mon!"

He took her by the hand and led her out of the bedroom. At the door of the penthouse, an expected knock came. After waking the others, Fox opened the door to Pepper's boastful figure.

"Good news," Pepper said to Fox. Behind him, Alec, Slippy and Falco, dressed in pajamas, a bathrobe and street clothes respectively, looked curious and excited.

"You got the Arwings," Fox said.

"Yes," Pepper said. He looked disappointed, as if _he_ wanted to say the magic words. "Well, c'mon, let's have a look!"

Up close, they were even more magnificent. Fox must've walked three complete circles around each one, letting his eyes feast on the vast number of improvements done since the last time he'd flown in one.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Pepper said proudly, "I give you: the 'R-Wing DS-5000 v. 9.12! Capable of traveling 0.2 past lightspeed, making a transport almost unnecessary I might add, this is the fastest Arwing ever made. Even so, it has controls so responsive, it might as well be wired to your brain!

"Its firepower is really something, too. Twin hyper beams come standard with this baby, and it can hold up to three times as many Nova Bombs. Its shields are much more powerful than before, withstanding up to forty thousand degrees Fahrenheit. It even has a basic self-repair, making your _Great Fox_ completely obsolete. And don't worry, Slippy. This thing is completely customizable."

Slippy jumped happily. Krystal smiled contently. Alec yawned, apparently still asleep. But Falco didn't react. He just stood with his arms folded, looking at the new Arwings disinterestedly.

"You got all this for _us?_" Krystal said, putting her hands to her chest.

Pepper shrugged. "You might be surprised to hear this," he said, "But these aren't really… how should I put this… unique. Each and every Arwing being produced at this moment is just as good as these."

Krystal seemed to be disappointed by this. "Oh," she said. "Well, it's the thought that counts."

"Don't worry," Slippy said, folding his arms. "Once _I'm_ done with them, those other Arwings won't even be remotely good in comparison."

This satisfied Krystal. Pepper turned to Falco. "Well?" he said. "I'd like to hear the opinion of Star Fox's leader."

"Oh yeah," Falco said. "You said it yourself: they're really something. 100, completely soul-free." He turned and went back into the penthouse, slamming the door behind him.

"What's gotten into Falco?" Slippy wondered.

"I dunno," Fox said with a frown. "I never thought he got emotionally attached to our old Arwings."

Pepper's communication device beeped. With a silent apology, he walked to the other end of the landing, switched on the device, and listened.

Fox looked at Krystal. "You don't think that, ah, it's possible that… I… could fly one of these?"

"Of course it's possible!" Krystal exclaimed. "Just don't send it flying into the ground."

Fox laughed, and began to climb the stairs into the cockpit. But he hadn't gotten his foot on the second step when Pepper returned.

"Get dressed, Fox," Pepper said. His face was grim. "Something's happened and they need us down at headquarters."

III

When Fox and Pepper got down to the War Room of the military headquarters, chaos was ensuing. People ran about, chattering excitedly, shouting orders into comm. devices, and typing commands into computer consoles. Fox was still confused, but the atmosphere of the war room was good enough evidence of what was going on.

"You mind giving me some details, now that we're here?" Fox shouted, speaking loud enough for Pepper to hear him.

Pepper looked at him, but kept walking. "Macbeth," he said. "At 4:30 A.M. Standard Cornerian Time, or 7:00 P.M. Macbethan Central Time, a fleet of unknown ships from an unknown location began attacking an establishment on Macbeth. So far, they've destroyed the E-107 Arwing Production Facility and several shuttles. Casualties are mounting, but unknown. For two hours the bombardments have been nonstop, and they require military support."

"Strange that a planet which produces military equipment would need military support," Fox said under his breath.

"There are very few military units present to use them," Pepper said. "And the last thing we want is a bunch of panicky civilians running around with live ammunition." Fox blushed, forgetting how good the hound's hearing was.

A frog came running up to Fox and stopped him. It was Commodore Jerry Python. Fox glanced at Pepper, but he was already engulfed in the masses of alarmed officers.

"Sir!" Jerry shouted. "My fleet is ready. Do I have your orders to make for Macbeth?"

Fox thought about it for a moment. The Navy was still small and primitive, as it hadn't had much of a chance to bulk up since the Senate voted in approval of it. He looked at a computer console across the room, where a monitor showed a frightened raccoon, standing inside a radio tower on Macbeth, speaking wildly into a radio while bombs exploded in the background.

"Yes," he said. "And pass my order on to the other commanders."

"Yes, sir!"

With a stiff salute, Jerry departed. Fox turned and joined Pepper, engaged in a high-energy conversation with several officers and technicians. Fox found that, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't pick up more than a few phrases from one particular conversation in the room.

"Can we find out how many casualties there've been?"

"Not at the moment, sir. We're getting some robots to estimate…"

"Where the hell's the army? Macbeth needs…"

"Dispatch all air force units! I want Katina _empty_ within an hour!"

"How long have they been attacking?"

"Damn it, I want to know who these guys are!"

"Macbeth's defense system managed to bring one of the fighters down. They're going to conduct a DNA test on the pilot as soon as…"

Fox's ears perked up at this particular piece of information.

_It doesn't prove a thing. I'm sure there are thousands of scumbags out there who wear eye patches._

"That's it!" Fox exclaimed. His words were lost in the uproar as soon as he said them. Fox approached Pepper, who was frantically leafing through pages of printouts. Pepper tossed the readouts at the technician with disgust, and turned to Fox.

"What is it?" Pepper said.

"I know how to prove that the eye patch belongs to Wolf O'Donnell!" Fox cried. "All we need…"

"What!" Pepper shouted angrily. "Fox, this is not the time!"

"Hear me out, Pepper. Now, look. Two major catastrophes have occurred within twenty-four hours. I'd bet my house and my health they're related."

Pepper nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe," he said. "All right, I'll get you a list of the best scientists in Lylat who can help you. But once you have it, I want you to leave me alone until this mess is sorted out! And make sure you send as many naval units as possible to Macbeth!"

"They're already on their way," Fox said, but Pepper was gone. Fox saw him typing away at a distant computer console. When he returned, he handed him a list of thirty or so scientists.

"There," Pepper said, turning away. "Now, go!"

Fox hurried out of the War Room. Once the heavy doors clicked shut behind him, and he was alone in the corridor, the contrast startled him. Because the War Room was soundproofed, the corridor was deathly silent. He could actually hear his own heartbeat.

Fox scanned the list as he made his way to the elevator. He was unfamiliar with most of the names. He figured it was probably because these were people twenty years younger than him, and so he had no way of knowing…

When his eyes reached the bottom of the list, he stopped. There was one name he knew. One he knew very well, in fact. It was a long ways away, but he felt the trip was worth it.

"Katina, here I come."

IV

It was noon on Katina. The graduating cadets were spending their final days at the academy with ease, and were probably in the middle of a two-hour lunch at the mess hall. Most of the undergraduates were gone, eager to start spending their summer vacation.

But four cadets, three of them graduates and one of them an undergrad, were not enjoying the start of their summer. Tom McCloud, Alyssa Darien, Tiger Dreggar and Bobo Simon were crouched in the main landing platform of the academy, scrubbing away at oil stains and skid marks with their toothbrushes. It was now day three of their punishment, and they had hardly made a change in the platform's appearance.

"This sucks," Tiger grumbled. "I should be scuba diving on Aquas right now, not slaving away on lousy concrete!"

"Be glad Tank didn't just expel us," Tom pointed out, as he dipped his toothbrush in a bucket of solvent and continued scrubbing. "After spending four years here at the academy, being expelled on the day of graduation would _truly_ suck."

Tiger didn't respond. He just kept scrubbing.

"What I don't understand," Bobo said, "is how in the world they figured out I was in on the prank. You guys didn't rat me out, did you?"

"For the last time, Bobo. No!" Tiger yelled.

"Easy, Tiger," Tom said. Then, to Bobo, "Someone probably saw you in the trees, kid."

No one spoke for about twenty minutes. Then, as Tom sat up and stretched his arms and his back, Alyssa cleared her throat and prepared to speak.

"Listen, Tom," she said. "I'm sorry for screwing up our prank. And… I'm sorry for freaking out like that."

"It happens," Tom said. He smiled. "It wasn't a very well thought-out prank, anyway. Hell, we could have just as easily shot Tank and fried him to a crisp."

"Now, _that's_ what I'm talking about!" Tiger shouted, standing up and grinning. "Although I'm not sure twenty years in a military prison would be worth it."

Tom chuckled. Then, perking up his ears, he said, "Do you hear that?"

It was the sound of a roaring engine in the distance. All four turned their eyes to the sky, where in the east, a single transport was coming in full speed. They watched as it circled the landing platform, cut its sublight engines and lowered to the ground on four repulsorlifts.

"Wonder who that could be?" Alyssa said aloud.

"Do you think it has something to do with all those ships that left the base an hour ago?" Bobo asked. No one answered his question, or even acknowledged it. They all stared.

The repulsorlifts fizzled out with one last burst of steam. Moments later, the front hatch opened, and the sole occupant of the transport walked down the metal stairs. It was Fox McCloud.

"Oh, crap," Tom muttered.

Fox approached the four cadets with a quizzical look on his face. "What's going on here?" he asked.

"Hi, dad," Tom said, smiling the best false smile he could muster.

"Hi, Tom's dad," the other three said in unison, before quickly returning to their work.

"I asked you a question," Fox said, putting his hands on his hips. "Well?"

Tom stood up. Even so, his father's stance was at least three inches taller than his. "Let me just say it was a prank gone wrong," Tom said.

"A prank?" Fox frowned.

"Involving Arwings," Tom said. He cursed himself for saying too much.

Fox rolled his eyes and slapped his forehead. "Tom, how many times have I told you?" he cried. "Arwings _are not toys._ No matter how good you may think you are at flying them, they are still basically large, flying guns. Killing machines. Could you live with yourself knowing that you killed someone during a stupid…"

"Please, dad," Tom said, cringing as the memories of Alyssa's dying ship flying into the ground resurfaced. "Tank already gave us this speech. And believe me, he can make an impact better than you ever could."

"It's true!" Bobo piped up. Alyssa elbowed him, and he bent down and scrubbed the concrete harder than ever.

Fox began walking towards the main building. "I'll be back, Tom," he said. "In the meantime, pray that I cool off." He turned, and entered the side door.

V

Following the directions of the receptionist, Fox went up the elevator and walked down the third-floor corridor, until he reached the office door he needed. He rapped his knuckles on the solid wood door and waited, nervously kneading the bagged eye patch in his pocket.

Through the door, Fox heard a raspy voice quietly acknowledge his presence. "Come on in," it said.

Fox entered a nicely decorated office. On the polished wood walls were pictures of a young pilot and his friends on various planets, usually standing in front of an Arwing or a tourist attraction. In the center of the room was a large, oak desk, covered with papers and dust, decorated with a cup of pens and a metal label with the words "Professor Peppy Hare" etched on it. Fox looked at the front of the desk; there, a hunched figure sat writing with shaky hands on an old piece of parchment. When Fox entered the room, Peppy looked up at him, adjusted his glasses, and smiled.

"Oh, hello, James," the old hare said. Its voice was shaky and raspy, as if its vocal cords were as worn out as its hands. "I haven't seen you for a while, you know. Please, take a seat."

"I'm Fox. Fox McCloud."

"Eh?"

Peppy stood up, grabbing his cane as he did so. He hobbled over to Fox and put on a stronger set of spectacles, and with these on, squinted hard at Fox for a long time. Fox noticed bald patches on Peppy's head.

"Oh. Yes, yes, of course, Fox," Peppy said. He took off the spectacles and walked to the other side of the room, where he stared at the old pictures on his walls. "You and your father look so alike, you know. Sometimes this old head of mine gets…"

"James has been dead for almost thirty years," Fox said cautiously.

"Yes." Peppy sat wearily at his desk again, closed his eyes, and sighed. "Yes. I know."

Fox quickly changed the subject. "I, uh, was hoping you could help me with something," he said, taking out the bag with the patch inside. "Someone sabotaged the _Great Fox_ yesterday. All we found at the scene was this…"

"Sabotage?" Peppy sat up suddenly, only to begin a coughing fit. When it had died down, Peppy cleared his throat and tried again. "Someone sabotaged the _Great Fox?_ Was anyone hurt?"

Fox shifted his weight. "No," he said, "But I'm afraid the ship was destroyed."

"Oh. What a pity. I rather liked that ship, you know. Some of the best moments in my youth were spent…"

"Yes, I know how special that ship was to Star Fox," Fox said quickly. "So if you would help me, we can bring justice to whomever did it." Fox handed the eye patch to Peppy. "This was all that was found at the scene. We think it may belong to Wolf O'Donnell from Star Wolf, but I want you to conduct a DNA test to make sure."

"DNA test? On an eye patch? You damn idiot! It doesn't have DNA! It's an eye patch! A piece of dyed cloth!" Peppy slammed his fists on the desk and shook his head, exasperated.

Fox's mouth hung open. He stared at Peppy, shocked. When he spoke, he did so with a stutter. "Well, I… uh… thought you could find a hair, or some skin cells, or something…"

"Oh right," Peppy said. He chuckled. Fox frowned with worry. "I thought you meant… ah, forget it. Let me see that eye patch."

Peppy took the eye patch out of the bag and examined it. Then suddenly, inexplicably, he began to cry. He threw down the eye patch and laid his head on the desk, sobbing like a child.

"What is it?" Fox asked.

"Oh… look at me," Peppy groaned. "I'm an old, senile… worn-out… well, look at me! I tell you, Fox or James or whoever the hell you are, I was once a brilliant scientist and cunning pilot. The others always looked up to me… I was a natural leader… Now, look at me!"

Peppy got up and hobbled over to the pictures on the wall. "I'm a rotting shell of my former self, wasting his last breaths brewing over the 'good old days.'" Peppy hung his head. "I should have died, Fox. I should have died with your father on Venom, where at least I would have died with honor. People would have said, 'He died a hero, that Peppy did. Yes, sir.' Now, when I die, alone at this wretched desk, they'll say, 'So he died? Finally! I thought that old fart would live forever!'"

Fox was beginning to wish he hadn't come to Katina at all. Instead, he wished that he had gone to one of those younger, more knowledgeable scientists on Pepper's list, one who might actually _help_ him.

"It won't be like that, Pep," Fox said. He only wished to calm the old hare down, but deep inside, he knew that what Peppy said was true, not only for Peppy, but also of every war hero. Fox began to fear that some day, the same would be true of him. "People will remember you as an excellent pilot and mentor. Those cadets leaving the academy will not have made it if it weren't for you."

Peppy turned to look at him, and smiled. "I suppose you're right," he said. "Maybe… heh… maybe they'll even begin to associate the name 'Star Fox' with my own!"

Fox laughed. "Now, about that eye patch," he said.

"Oh, yes," Peppy said, taking the patch. "Let's go to the labs downstairs. C'mon, let's go."

Peppy shut the door to his office and, leading Fox like a child, began tottering down to the laboratories.


	4. First Strike

I

Outside, the four cadets were still scrubbing the concrete. Downstairs, in the main building, Tank Reynolds was arguing with the director of the school board about having another graduation ceremony to replace the disaster that was the first ceremony. Across the establishment, the graduate cadets were finishing up their big lunches in the mess hall. In the park, a restoration expert was painstakingly repairing the damage done to the statue by Alyssa's Arwing. It was a calm, lazy, summer afternoon on Katina.

In the skies above, unseen by those going about their business in the air force base and air force academy below, small ships began to appear. They were scarce at first, but they quickly became a seething swarm, like a colony of angry wasps preparing to strike. Once organized, the first wave began its descent. Its destination: the academy.

"What the hell?" Tom said, standing up. He shielded his eyes from the sun. "What's all that?"

"Looks like those ships are coming back from wherever they went," Tiger said, after a quick glance at the sky.

Tom continued to stare. He was soon joined by Alyssa, who looked equally concerned. "Something's not right," he said. "It looks like they're in attack formation…"

The foremost ship suddenly swooped away and began climbing. Below, as Tom watched, the dormitories exploded in a bright orange cloud of fire. The remains of the building crumbled to the ground.

"Holy shit!" Tiger cried.

A missile screamed overhead. "Look out!" Tom shouted. He tackled Alyssa and brought her to the ground just as the missile struck Fox's transport and detonated. The four cadets were showered with shrapnel and ash.

The academy was suddenly alive. Cadets rushed from the mess hall, only to be thrown to the ground as the building behind them was destroyed. Interceptors began to descend upon the doomed cadets, firing endless barrages of laser blasts at them. When the interceptors pulled out and the smoke cleared, Tom saw a pockmarked lawn covered with the bodies of eight cadets. The others ran like mad.

Bombs exploded all around them. Tom and his friends tried desperately to find somewhere to hide, but it seemed that every possible shelter was being torn to shreds by bombs and laser blasts. Black smoke swirled around them.

"To the main building!" Tom shouted. "Go! Run!"

They ran as fast as they could, ducking as nearby ships exploded. They were still a good twenty yards from the building, and an interceptor noticed them. It circled in the air until the four cadets were in its sights. It screamed through the air, firing streams of hot laser blasts.

"Get down!"

Tom and the others hit the concrete hard as they were instantly smothered by laser blasts, tearing up the concrete around them. When he opened his eyes, Tom saw fire. He looked at the sky to see whether the interceptor was coming back for a second run. When it was clear that it was not, Tom got to his feet.

"Is everyone all right?" he asked. He was answered by groans.

"I've been hit!" Bobo shrieked. Tom rushed over and looked for a wound. He saw two; one had cut off the tip of Bobo's tail, and another had put a giant, sizzling hole in his thigh. Tom guessed the leg would have to be amputated.

He and Tiger helped Bobo walk as they crossed that final stretch to the doors. The cadets made it inside, just as another bomber flew over the landing platform and dropped a final bomb. This one struck and destroyed the final surviving ship, while blowing the doors away. Tom shielded his face, getting a gash in his arm as on of the door flew into him.

"You're hurt!" Alyssa cried.

"Never mind that!" Tom shouted. "Get him to the bomb shelter, _now!_"

On the other side of the building, Fox and Peppy had just entered the laboratory and placed the eye patch on a microscope when the building rocked like a ship.

"What was that?" Peppy wondered.

Fox saw it before Peppy did. Through the windows across the lab, he saw a fighter swoop down, release a missile, and pull out. The missile came through the glass windows and hit the floor. Fox barely opened his mouth before he and Peppy were blown away. The laboratory became an instant inferno as gas lines exploded and chemical-filled flasks burst, and the missile's powerful ammo sent a wave of destruction through the entire room. Fox and Peppy were thrown through the back wall into the hallway, along with molten pieces of metal and gnarled pipes and whistling pieces of glass.

When Fox recovered, he found his head bleeding, and his fur singed. The lab was completely destroyed, with only the floor, covered with debris and fire, intact. Another explosion rocked the building, sending sparks and chunks of drywall to the ground.

_What the hell is going on?_ Fox said to himself. As he did so, his attention was suddenly averted. Peppy still lay on the ground, and Fox saw why. The hare's vest was soaked with blood, and a piece of metal the size of his head was sticking out of his lung.

"Peppy!"

Peppy turned his head to look at him. Blood was streaked from his mouth, staining the white fur red. "Fox," he whispered. "I…"

Another explosion. This time, the ceiling collapsed entirely, showering Fox in pipes, wires, and hot glass from the lights. Objects from the second floor began to fall through, and it looked to Fox like they wouldn't stop.

"It's gonna collapse!" Fox cried. He grabbed hold of Peppy's coat and dragged him down the debris-covered hallway. The old hare resisted.

"Don't, Fox," he whispered. "I… I won't make it…"

"No!" Fox screamed. He shook Peppy angrily.

"Fox," Peppy said with a smile. "I don't want to die… alone at my desk…" And he was gone.

Fox was overcome with shock at the sight of his old friend's motionless body. A metal strut hitting him in the head brought him back. With a final glance at Peppy, Fox ran.

Alyssa and Tiger placed Bobo on a table in the bomb shelter below the building, just as another tremor rocked them. Bits of concrete fell from the ceiling. Alyssa and Tiger exchanged glances.

"We'll come back for you," Alyssa said to Bobo, and she fled up the stairs.

They met Tom at the top. "This place is collapsing!" he said. "We gotta get out of here!"

Alyssa put her hands to her face and looked down towards the bomb shelter. "But Bobo…"

"No time!" Tom shouted. He grabbed her by the arm and ran.

As they reached the main lobby, clouds of gray smoke came pouring from the stairwell. The walls began to crack. There were very few seconds to spare.

"Dad!" Tom cried. Fox had come running from the opposite side of the lobby, where the hallway was already caving in on itself.

"Go, Tom!" Fox waved his arms at his son and ran for the main doors. Outside, a couple of professors were running down the path away from the building. An explosion from above consumed them, leaving nothing but a morose stream of black smoke.

"Now," Tom said, and they ran, leaping over fallen struts and through the shattered glass doors. They ran through the smoke, where they were all but concealed. Once the smoke dissipated, they found themselves exposed and unprotected on a vast battlefield, where many already lay slain.

Fox looked to the sky, expecting a barrage of bombs to be dropped squarely on his head, but none came. The bombers, it seemed, were gone.

"Where are they…" But his question was quickly answered. The academy, with all its buildings, ships and landing platforms, was destroyed. Now, the attackers were going for the air force base.

Behind them, the main building came crashing to the ground, expelling tons of debris and clouds of smoke outwards, stifling Fox and the cadets. Alyssa cried out. Fox hid a tear. Tom closed his eyes.

"What's that?" Tiger cried. Everyone looked to where he was pointing, and saw an alien transport, landing on the lawn a hundred or so yards away. When it had landed, the hatches opened on its underside and heavily armed soldiers began pouring out.

"Ah, hell," Tiger said.

"Shield your eyes," Fox commanded, and he took a grenade from his belt, pulled the pin and hurled it at the transport. It landed underneath and when it detonated, it took with it the entire ship. Unfortunately, most of the troops had disembarked by that time.

"C'mon, into the park," Fox said.

The troops started chasing them, but because the collapsed building had given off so much dust and smoke, it was difficult for them to see their targets. Fox knew this, of course, because he found it hard to see himself. His eyes were stinging, and his lungs burned.

A laser blast streaked past them. Fox turned and fired his own blaster, twice to create the impression of multiple blasters. He continued running until the towering branches of the trees covered them.

"Where now?" Tiger wailed. "They'll just pick us off in…"

"Not if we can pick them off first," Fox said. "Keep moving. I'll try and get them at intervals." He turned and dove behind a statue.

Fox soon realized that he was not dealing with ordinary soldiers. As soon as the cadets dispersed and he was alone, hiding behind a statue, the troops fanned out, intending to flank him in his general position. They all had blasters. Before Fox could make a guess as to how they compared to his own, an officer hidden behind a clump of trees made a break for it, but was cut down by a single blast. The gun recoiled fiercely, and the blast punched through the officer's chest without losing any velocity. The flight of the laser blast ended with a sizzle on a cobblestone path beyond the officer's body.

Fox took another grenade, his last, and pulled the pin. After a few seconds, he dropped it by the statue and took off. Before the troops could notice and fill him full of holes, the grenade exploded, taking with it a large portion of the statue. The soldiers were forced to protect themselves from the falling chunks of rock.

Tom appeared out of the trees ahead. Fox motioned for him to keep moving.

"Where are we going?" Tom said.

"Make for the emergency radio tower near the base," Fox said between heavy breaths.

"Are you kidding? That radio tower's huge! They'll surely have bombed it by now!"

"No, no, the _emergency_ radio tower. It's much smaller, and if we're lucky, it's still intact."

The troops began to gain on them. Fox fired again, this time hitting a soldier in the abdomen, causing it to double over. There were at least a dozen left. Fox weaved between trees to off their aim, which he suspected was very good.

"Get down!"

Fox stopped and turned to see the soldiers fall to the ground, and then explode into a million pieces. From their smoking remains came a Katina officer, holding a grenade in one hand and a blaster in another.

"Tank!" Tom cried. "Tank Reynolds!"

"You don't have time to thank me, cadet," Tank said gruffly. "They need backup at the base. I intend to give them whatever help I can."

"You can't help them," Fox said, putting his hand on Tank's shoulder. "Those bombers could kill you in a heartbeat. We must go to the radio tower and get help."

Tank shook off Fox's grip and ran for the base. Tom and Alyssa followed him.

"What…?"

"Sorry, Dad," Tom said. "I don't think radioing for help is gonna do anything."

Fox shook his head. With Tiger in tow, Fox continued making for the radio tower.

II

When they burst out of the park into the open, they finally got a good look at the absolute destruction under way at the base. Unlike the academy, the base was chock-full of supplies, buildings, and, under normal circumstances, ships. Now that most of the air force was out defending Macbeth, the base was only occupied by a few ships and officers; and it was virtually defenseless.

Tank, Tom, and Alyssa dashed through a hole in the fence and into the base, where they found themselves surrounded by fire and debris. Tank motioned for them to follow. They followed for about two hundred yards when an explosion nearby sent them all to their feet.

"Get up!" Tank roared. "There's no time to lose!"

The cadets got to their feet and followed the captain, until they reached an intact storage shed. Inside were four Arwings and a hoverbike.

"All right, listen," Tank whispered. "Most of the interceptors seem to have gone away. If you can bring down a good number of bombers, you could save what's left of the base, and maybe even a few lives. Be quick getting off the ground, all right? Go!"

Tom made his selection, as did Alyssa. They went through the liftoff cycle with record timing, but as they began to lift off, a bomb exploded in close vicinity with the shed, knocking down the roof and three of the walls.

"Shit," Tank shouted. "Go! Go!"

The two Arwings cut on repulsorlifts, went into all-range mode, and were off. Tank escaped the shed just as another bomb fell, destroying the building and the Arwings within.

Fox saw the Arwings lift off from across the compound. _Good luck, kids,_ he thought, and continued running toward the tiny radio tower hidden at the edge of the base. It looked intact.

"Mr. McCloud, sir!" Tiger shouted. "Look!"

A few hundred yards away, a transport had just lifted off, leaving twenty more armed soldiers on the ground. Fox swore under his breath.

The two made it into the radio tower. Fox shut the door and tossed his blaster to Tiger.

"Here," he said. "Hold 'em off as best you can."

Tiger nodded. Fox turned and began tuning the antique equipment. "Ah, Corneria," he said. "Come in, Corneria. Come in, Fortuna. Macbeth? Hello? Can _anybody_ hear me? Hello?" Fox swiftly adjusted the equipment with frustration. He looked to the sky in desperation, and suddenly, saw why the radio wouldn't work, and would never work again. Katina, it seemed, had a new ring. Frigates, large and small, orbited the planet, creating a blockade impenetrable by anything.

And because of their collective jamming signals, not even an emergency beacon would go through.

An explosion from behind sprayed acrid clouds of smoke and hot sparks into Fox's face. Turning around, he saw that the door had been blown in by a grenade, and that five of the soldiers were now firing into the small radio tower. One bright red streak barely missed his ear, hitting the only computer console in the tower. Flames jumped from the dead monitor.

"I can't hold them off!" Tiger shouted from his shelter at the side of the door. He exposed himself for a moment, fired, and returned, just as a torrent of return fire came.

Fox overturned the table, completely disregarding the radio equipment that once sat on it, and used it as his own barrier. Within moments, the repeated blaster shots began to tear the table apart.

Fox said, "That's my only blaster!" just as a beam struck a piece of equipment on the ground before the table, blowing it to pieces with a clatter.

"This is a military base! They should have _some_ guns laying around here!"

A bomb landed particularly close to the radio tower, and although the soldiers noticed it and began to scramble, they weren't early enough. The two closest to the explosion were blown to bits, while the others were knocked flat on their backs, stunned or unconscious.

Fox, meanwhile, found himself sudden exposed as the explosion ripped the walls off the old radio tower. Blinded by smoke, momentarily (or so he hoped) deaf from the explosion, and with a right hand bleeding profusely, he was sure that he was doomed.

Fox bent down into the rubble and pulled Tiger to his feet. "Come on!" he shouted. "Let's go!"

Tiger looked at him in confusion. He said something, but Fox heard nothing but a faint ringing in his ears. He shook his head and grabbed Tiger by the arm, pulling him along. It was then that he noticed his thumb was missing.

He didn't notice the pain, as his body had automatically shifted its priorities from "protect from injury" to "protect from death," but when he tried to grab at the boy's arm, the lack of an opposable thumb left his hand to slip away, leaving a giant spot of blood on Tiger's shirt. Fox looked down and stared at the hand, dumbfounded.

Now Tiger was pulling him along, and when Fox looked up from his hand, he saw that the smoke had begun to clear. Behind them, the soldiers were beginning to stir. Fox turned away and ran; his fear and faintness due to loss of blood changed him from a courageous leader to a stumbling, drunken moron, barely able to walk towards a definitive goal even with Tiger leading him by both shoulders. Streaks of red began to sweep past them, and Tiger was shouting again, although Fox could still make nothing out. His guide was going for a pile of rubble as temporary protection from the blasts, which were becoming increasingly frequent. Fox could no longer tell how many were shooting at him, his vision was so skewered and his balance so unchecked.

Another bomb, again unbearably close, went off. Fox was thrown forward into the unwelcoming pile of rubble. His head struck some hard object, and even with useless ears, Fox could hear the unmistakable crunch of bone. A hole in his head was opened; and his mind, a hapless passenger of a spaceship with a breached wall, was sucked out, leaving his body cold and lifeless.

III

"All right Alyssa. Break up, and take it to them!"

Tom pulled his craft into a barrel roll to the left, making a turn that took the bombers into his sights, while Alyssa did the same in the opposite direction. Tom narrowed his eyes, and rocketed forward.

The first wave of bombers pulling away from the destruction to come around for another pass looked genuinely surprised. Halfway up, the five bombers began to try turning around, going into a tailspin and making them all the more vulnerable to Tom's attack. He squeezed the trigger five times, sending a fatal shot through each craft's innards. All five went spiraling into the ground.

"We caught them napping," Alyssa boasted. Across the base, she had already destroyed four bombers.

"Don't dwell on it!" Tom warned, although also proud. "Hit them fast and hard!"

He flew straight into the fray, hitting retreating and attacking craft alike, even destroying ships with their backs to him. These he hit especially hard, feeling a dark sense of justice as he gave himself as much of an unfair advantage as they had in attacking a mostly vacant base in the first place.

"What the hell? Tom, look down there!"

Tom leaned over, and at the edge of the base, saw a group of huddled soldiers firing into the base. "They're not friendly, whatever they are," he said. "Give 'em a few warning shots so they scatter."

Alyssa did so. She killed one troop and knocked down several others, but the rest of them persisted in attacking. A few even shot at Alyssa's Arwing.

"What's wrong with those guys?" Alyssa cried. "They're not _moving!_"

Tom frowned. "Let me handle them." He swooped down, charged up a shot, locked onto the group, and fired. This vaporized over half the troops instantly. The rest, three or four at the most, turned around and retreated. "That did the trick," he said with a grin.

The bombers were in attack formation now. They still didn't pose a threat to the two Arwings, since the bombers had most of their power in their shields and bombs, and very little in melee combat power. Tom and Alyssa continued to shoot them down with ease.

"Uh, oh, Tom," Alyssa's voice crackled on the radio. "Trouble up above."

Tom glanced into the sky, and saw what appeared to be a giant flock of birds diving towards the base. His experience taught him better, though; these were interceptor fighters. Now, the strengths were matched, and Tom and Alyssa were outnumbered one thousand to one.

"Head for the wilderness," Tom ordered. "Draw them away from the base!"

Tom shot away into the east, while Alyssa flew towards the west. But these efforts seemed useless pretty quickly. The waves of interceptors, it seemed, were a bluff; the attacking force was retreating.

Within moments, the sky of Katina was empty, and before a minute had passed, so was the space above the planet.

Tom and Alyssa both turned their eyes from the sky and stared down at the Air Force Academy and Air Force Base of Katina, and the complete destruction that had befallen both within a single hour.

IV

From the War Room of Corneria, Pepper watched intently as monitors began to show numbers concerning the attack on Macbeth. The first thing he noticed was that the death toll and damage costs were both very low. He wouldn't have expected such low numbers, especially over the course of several hours.

"Come in, Corneria," crackled a newly lit hologram. "Come in…"

"This is Corneria," Pepper shouted. "General Pepper speaking." Although the War Room had quieted down since the beginning of the invasion, it was still loud, and he had gotten used to shouting.

"This is Commodore Jerry Python," the hologram said. "I'm in Macbeth right now. May I speak with Admiral Fox McCloud, General Pepper?"

"He's not here right now, so I'll have to do," Pepper growled.

"Very well, then, pass my reports on to the Admiral," Jerry said. With a pause, he continued, "The combined forces of the Air Force and the Navy managed to bring down a good number of their craft. Considering the numbers in that short duration, we probably could have eliminated them completely, if they hadn't retreated so quickly."

"So, it's a victory then?"

"Yes, sir. A very good first victory for the Navy, I might add."

Pepper looked pleased. Just then, a nearby hologram unit began to flicker. No one else looked like they were going to take it.

"Just a moment," Pepper said.

The hologram faded away, and Pepper walked over to the other one. At first, he began to think that it was a false message, perhaps an error in the confusion of the battle at Macbeth. But the image began to get clearer, until Pepper was sure that he could see a fox's face.

"Come… Corner… in… hel…"

The reception was poor, full of holes and static, but it sounded urgent. "This is Corneria," Pepper said. "Pepper…"

"Corne… ple… in… Hel…"

"This is Corneria," Pepper yelled. "Pepper speaking!"

"Oh… Pe… this…om… Cloud…"

"What?" Pepper cried. "Please repeat that last message."

"Fou… nother… adio tow… tryi… hours… ntact…"

"What was that? I didn't copy. _Please repeat._"

"This…om Mc… oud… ling from… atina… we… been atta…"

"Repeat your last message, _please!_"

"Repea… Katin… wa… attacked."

"Oh, my dear God." Pepper stared with jaw dropped and shoulders sagged, a frozen and desperately forlorn figure staring at a fuzzy hologram in a busy War Room on Corneria.


	5. Eye of the Storm

I

Admiral Reccal Moss entered the _Harbinger's_ communications room, finding the technicians at work again, this time working with the actual hardware of the machines in the room. He stopped in his tracks, folded his arms, and sighed loudly. At this, the chief technician looked up from behind an open panel, banging his head on a protruding toolbox sitting on the table above.

"Hello sir," the chief technician said with a smile, although his eyes showed that he was in pain. "Ah… it may be a while before any transmissions can go through to Karzen. One of our HICs (that is, Hologram Image Controllers) had a faulty part that triggered a surge, and now we have to replace twenty out of thirty-two circuit boards in the system, boards in our computers, as well as other…"

"I don't care _why_ it doesn't work," Moss growled. "Just get it working as fast as you can!"

The chief technician scratched his head. "Well," he said timidly, "It'll probably take at least an hour."

Behind him, a technician leapt out of an open computer panel, where sparks and smoke began spilling out.

"Make that two hours."

Moss shook his head and left the room.

An hour and a half later, after much time spent in the bridge looking over the stats of his fleet and its recent battles, Moss received a message telling him that the communications room was available. Once he entered, though, he saw that the sputtering panels and scattered computer parts and cables lying on top of each other were still everywhere. But the chief technician, looking unnaturally optimistic in the face of his superior's wrath at his incompetence, approached Moss confidently.

"We've finally gotten it so you can send a message to Karzen," the chief technician said. "Although, you won't be able to get any visuals. It will be a strictly vocal communication."

"Fine. Establish a transmission to Lord Nerome on Karzenia."

The technician bowed, and after hammering a few panels into place and smashing a few buttons, he successfully got Dictator Nerome on the speaker.

"Well?" came Nerome's impatient and dangerously expectant voice.

"Forgive us, sire," Moss said. "Our ship has had some technical difficulties, and as a result, we were unable to create a visual…"

"Never mind that," Nerome spat. "I want to know how your newest campaign is going."

Moss naturally straightened. "The attack on Katina was a success," he said. "The base was destroyed, as well as nearly half the air force's units and officers who remained during our attack on Macbeth. However, we weren't without casualties. Nearly one hundred of our bombers were shot down, and Captain Krumptin's Blitz forces suffered high casualties."

"No matter," Nerome said. "Casualties are to be expected when going against any foe. Now, prepare your fleet for the next step in your campaign."

"Yes, sire." Moss bowed. With a sizzling spray of sparks from the back of the room, the transmission ended.

II

When reinforcements arrived from Macbeth, they found a wasteland in the former base and academy's place. Black smoke streamed everywhere from gouges in the ground, while piles of rubble lay where tall buildings once stood. Upon landing, they quickly set up a temporary medical center for the wounded, while coroners were sent out to count the dead. Among the ships to land were four shiny, new Arwings, forming a V on the ground. It was Star Fox.

Once her landing cycle was complete, Krystal quickly pushed open the cockpit door, unbuckled herself from the seat and climbed to the ground. The first thing that struck her was how much worse the damage appeared from the ground. The pillars of smoke, which appeared as thin streams in the sky, were now billowing clouds, obscuring most of the landscape with darkness. The ground was littered with pockmarks and scorched limbs, with whole corpses seeming to be a rarity.

The crunch of uprooted, dry dirt from behind told Krystal that Falco had jumped out of his ship and was now joining her. He whistled softly.

"They really scrubbed this place clean," Falco said. Behind him, a cat wearing a white smock came running. The cat nurse spun around, glanced at Falco and Krystal a moment each, and grabbed both by the arms.

"What's your blood type?" the cat nurse screamed.

Falco looked at Krystal. "Uh… AB," he said.

"B," said Krystal.

The cat nurse released them both with a frustrated groan and continued running. It was clear that the situation was grim.

Krystal, Falco, Slippy and Alec walked across the scorched lawn to the medical center, where a frenzy of nurses and doctors scurried about, desperately trying to save the wounded and the dying they found on Katina after the attack. They saw the cat nurse disappear into the medical center.

"Mom!"

The four turned, and saw Tom McCloud running towards them, alongside with Tiger Dreggar.

"Tom! You're all right!" Krystal cried, both surprised and relieved. Then, with a frown, "What is it?"

"It's Dad," Tom said. He beckoned with a wave of his hand toward the ruined Air Force Base. "Come on!"

Fox McCloud lay on a pile of rubble in the Air Force Base. His body was contorted so badly that the relief crew was afraid to move it, fearing that he may have a broken back or some other serious injury. The relief crew had, however, wrapped a bandage around his head and one around his right hand. Both bandages were red with blood.

Tank Reynolds was the only one accompanying Fox at the time. He stood a short distance from the body with his arms folded, frowning.

"Oh, my God." Krystal crouched down next to Fox and touched his fur, matted down with dried blood, covered with a heavy layer of dust, and, in some places, burned away. She looked up at Tank with pleading, misty eyes. "Is he dead?"

"Unconscious," Tank said, without changing his stance. "But don't hope for the best."

Krystal shook her head and bit her lip. "What happened to him?" she said.

"Who knows," Tank said with a shrug. "There was so much confusion…"

"I do," Tiger said suddenly. Everyone looked at him with surprise.

"Well?" Tank growled.

Tiger shifted his weight and looked at Krystal. "Well, back in the park, we… that is, Fox, Tom, Alyssa, Tank and I… split up. Tom, Alyssa and Tank wanted to counterattack the bombers by finding and taking off in a fighter, while Fox and I went to see if we could radio for help.

"Then, while we were in the radio tower, fending off some foot soldiers and trying to make contact with somebody, a bomb knocked us to the ground. Afterwards, Fox didn't seem like he could go on, so I had to help him. Then another bomb went off, and when the smoke cleared, I saw Fox like this." Tiger pointed to Fox's twisted body in the rubble. "I was determined to guard Fox as long as I could, which probably wouldn't be very long. Fortunately, the soldiers scattered after about five minutes."

Suddenly, Fox began to stir. He twitched his arms and squeezed his eyelids. A smile appeared on Krystal's face, and it spread across to her ears. "He's coming to," she said.

"His back's not broken, then!" Tom said happily. "We should move him now!"

"No," said Tank.

Krystal frowned. "Why not? There's probably all kinds of sharp pieces of metal and bumpy bricks under him… couldn't we at least move him to the grass?"

"Not until he wakes up," Tank said firmly.

Fox lifted his hand to his head with a groan. His mouth moved as if to form words, until at last, he managed to mumble two words: "My head."

"Dad!" Tom cried. "Can you hear me?"

Fox forced himself to sit upright, wincing the entire time at the pain. He opened his eyes and stared at the group standing around him. He shook his head violently, and then said loudly, "I can't hear anything!"

Tank leaned over and clapped his hands in Fox's ears. Fox winced.

"_Can you hear me?_" Tank screamed.

"Yes," Fox said. "Not so well, though."

"_Repeat what I say back to me, Admiral McCloud_," Tank shouted. "_All right_?"

Fox nodded.

"_I am a native of Corneria, but I hate the weather there_," Tank shouted.

"I am a native of Corneria, but I hate the weather there," Fox repeated.

Tank lowered his voice to the volume one would use when speaking to a group of five or more people. "I am a carnivore, but I only eat white meat."

Fox frowned. "I am a… carnivore… but… I only eat… white meat."

Then Tank spoke at a normal, one-on-one conversation volume. "I learned to fly at the age of twelve by using a flight simulator."

Fox frowned and stared into space, as if thinking. Then, sadly, he shook his head. Tank looked at Krystal and Tom.

"His hearing's damaged, but he's not deaf," Tank said. "It's likely a result of being in such close proximity with a concussion bomb going off. Those things give off a bang that's the equivalent of a gun going off inches away from your ear."

"Then why aren't I hard of hearing?" Tiger said. "I was right next to him when it happened!"

"He's seen quite a few more battles than you have, Dreggar."

"Will he always be like that?" Krystal said, nodding towards Fox, who was snapping his fingers in his ears and frowning.

Tank looked grim. "His hearing may recover slightly," he said, "but not completely. You'll have to get used to him yelling all the time."

Fox groaned loudly. All turned and looked at him. Fox had forgotten all about his severed thumb, and, after removing the bandage out of curiosity, had seen the bloody stump.

"Can you walk?" Tank said loudly.

Fox slowly got to his feet, and after succeeding in standing upright, began to sway woozily. Krystal came behind to help him.

"Go to the medical center and see if someone can sew up that thumb," Tank ordered. Fox nodded distantly, and he and Krystal walked slowly until clouds of smoke obscured them. As they went, another fox, Alyssa Darien, came running through the rubble, stopping in front of Tom.

"There you are!" Alyssa cried, panting. "You gotta come quickly!"

"What is it?" Tom asked.

"It's Bobo," Alyssa said. "He's alive."

III

When Alyssa and Tiger had left Bobo in the bomb shelter only to consider him dead when the building collapsed, they forgot one thing: they had left him in a _bomb shelter._ It was an underground shelter designed to withstand incredible amounts of punishment from above, and withstand it did. When Bobo was left on the table in the bomb shelter, he was well enough to notice the tremors and noises that were coming in increasing frequency from the floors above. When dust began to flow in through the open door, Bobo withstood the pain as best he could while he dragged himself to the opening, shut the heavy metal door, spun the lock, and collapsed.

Several hours later, when rescue came and began looking through the debris for survivors, they noticed a stairwell into a hole in the ground, where they saw a partially obscured metal door. Once the door was wrestled open, Bobo's unconscious body fell out.

Alyssa, Tiger, Tom, and the Star Fox team visited his cot in the hectic medical tent. Aside from his left leg hanging on a sling, Bobo was surprisingly unhurt. Most of his visitors looked worse than he did.

"Hey buddy," Tom said with a smile. "How are you?"

Bobo tried to make a return smile. "Alive," he said.

"And the leg?"

"Dead," Bobo said with a laugh. Then his smile disappeared, and he looked down. "Yeah, they're going to have to amputate it. The whole thing. All the way to the hip." But he looked up again, and a smile, brighter and braver than before, lit up his face. "But hey, they're gonna replace it with a really cool robot leg! State-of-the-art! And guess who's gonna be footing the bill for that one? I tell ya, nothing's better than government-funded treatment!"

Tom laughed. His friend was resolutely positive, rarely showing somber emotions, even when his leg was going to be taken away.

Outside the tent, pilots began running, shouting and beckoning to others behind them. Falco raised an eyebrow. Tom frowned, and ran outside to see what it was. He tried to ask the pilots what the deal was, but in the midst of heaves of breath as answers, he caught the names of a few commanding officers he could ask. The sky was already lit up with bright blue streaks as ships, large and small alike, left the planet.

Tom caught up to one commanding officer, standing at the bottom of the ramp of a heavy fighter that had not yet taken off.

"What's going on? You guys have hardly been here at all! Those patients aren't even close to recovering!" Tom shouted, breathlessly.

"We're not taking down the medical tents, and we're leaving a sufficient number of personnel behind to care for the patients," the officer said. "But we've received an urgent distress call, and must respond to it immediately."

"Distress call?" Tom said with a frown.

The officer nodded. "Fortuna. Whatever did Katina in earlier today is preparing to do the same there."

IV

About thirty minutes after the distress call was sent, reinforcements, composed of eighty percent of Lylat's Air Force, arrived out of hyperspace near Meteo, the broad asteroid belt between them and half the system's planets, including Fortuna. This planet in particular was remarkably close to the asteroids, and in fact could be seen as a tiny blue sphere in the distance.

The communication link on every control bridge on every major frigate beeped, followed by a message from the command ship. "All squadron units report."

"Cornerian Republican Squadron standing by."

"Sea Dog Squadron standing by."

"Katina Air Force Squadron standing by."

"Lylat Patrol Squadron standing by."

"Legendary Squadron standing by."

"Green Space Monkey Squadron standing by."

"Desert Hawk Squadron standing by."

With all squadrons in (except for the Fortuna National Guard Squadron, which was scrambling to protect its planet at that very moment), the command ship gave the next order. "Assume standard asteroid maneuvering tactics. Program your turbolasers accordingly."

Seven green lights on the command ship's main console showed that seven squadrons acknowledged that command. The assembled fleet proceeded to fly into the chaotic mess of ever-tumbling rock and metal and ice. Streaks of red energy could already be seen, followed by tiny explosions of asteroids being vaporized or turned into small, harmless pieces.

The fleet was several miles into the asteroids when the stragglers of the fleet finally entered. The larger frigates were beginning to encounter large asteroids, and as these required just about every turbolaser on a single frigate, fighters began to stream out of their docking bays to take care of the smaller asteroids that still presented a hazard to the frigates.

Suddenly, and without much warning, another fleet appeared. Behind every floating rock that the fleet could see came an alien ship, small, medium, large, and all were designed to handle debris during battle. The other fleet descended on the first, bombarding it with everything it had, from torpedoes to concussion bombs.

"Mayday, mayday!" came the unanimous cry to the stragglers behind them. "We are under attack! Repeat, we are under…"

But the transmissions did not go very far; the asteroids were too numerous, and the alien fleet had successfully jammed all transmissions within a thousand miles. And by the time the stragglers had noticed that something was wrong, the alien fleet had closed in around them, darting in and out of cover, weaving between asteroids as they took out ship after ship.

The command ship, the others saw, was gone. As hundreds of tiny fighters buzzed about it like insects, the ship struggled to bring them down with its turbolasers, and failed to protect itself from the threat of the asteroids. A large one slowly descended upon it, heading straight for the control bridge. The shields were exhausted in an instant, and the hull caved in on itself.

The fighters were already dwindling. More explosions than stars could be seen at one instant, and as orders were frantically given for the fighters to return to their designated docking bays, the officers saw that there was no time, and that their own fate was uncertain, and instead gave the orders for the frigates to depart.

This was no easy task. The fleet was still surrounded by asteroids, and the enemy's attacks were hard and persistent. One frigate of the Green Space Monkey Squadron, piloted by a particularly fearful captain, actually attempted the jump into hyperspace. Whether it collided with an asteroid or its computer system sensed an impending collision and brought the ship back so quickly that the artificial gravity pulled it apart, the others could not tell, but the frigate, without so much as an explosion, was instantly blown into subatomic particles.

By now only three frigates were left, and a trivial number of fighters, most of which were actively being captured by the alien fleet. The first frigate, part of the Desert Hawk Squadron and the stragglers, was heading back the way it came. Its turbolasers were all focused on the enemy fighters around it, and was being bombarded by asteroids. Its shields were gone, and its hull peeling away in pieces; the enemy could see that the ship was at its end. The interceptor fighters pulled back, and a single bomber flew over the ship, dropped a bomb near its engines, and left a brief billow of flame before the ship's fuel and internal atmosphere were depleted.

The other two, both of the Cornerian Republican Squadron, bravely continued their fight inside the asteroid field. They had succeeded in bringing down a good number of enemy fighters, but many more had taken their place. At last, a pair of ion frigates came into the scene, and when the enemy fighters turned to protect the ion frigates from the asteroids, The Cornerian Republican frigates knew their struggle was at an end. A bright energy beam erupted from each frigate, boring into each Cornerian Republican frigate. A brief flicker of shield could be seen; then glimmering pieces of metal as the beams cut through the hull, frame, interior rooms and halls, and then, the engine.

First one, then the other, exploded violently, taking out several enemy fighters and small asteroids with it. After a quick search, the alien fleet left the asteroid field and returned to Fortuna. One mission accomplished, they aimed to complete another.

The Air Force was defeated; now, the system.


	6. The Defensive

I

"Sir, we've lost contact with the units at Meteo."

General Pepper turned and stared icicles into the technician's face. Pepper had been pacing the War Room all day, shouting orders and reading computer screens. His eyes were bleary, his fur was ruffled, his uniform was disheveled, and he was tired. He was not prepared to deal with technical difficulties.

"They're in an asteroid field, you idiot!" Pepper roared. "_Of course _we're going to lose contact with them! Quit jumping at shadows!"

The technician, a little raccoon fellow by the name of Donald Snivell, trembled. "But sir…"

"General Pepper!"

Pepper turned away from Donald to respond to another technician. "What is it?"

"Sir, Fortuna's condition is dire. Their forces are weakening, and the enemy attacks are getting stronger by the minute. They require assistance or guarantee surrender within the hour."

"General Pepper, sir!"

It was the meek technician, Donald, again. Pepper turned and cried, irritably, "Yes, what is it?"

"Sir… the units in Meteo were supposed to arrive in Fortuna an hour ago. And… when that estimate was calculated, we factored in the possibility of accidents and severe difficulty with the asteroids."

The implications were beginning to sink in. Then, the other alerted Pepper once more.

"General! _Fortuna needs assistance!_"

"Sir," Donald said, his voice weak and tinged with fear, "Sir… no one's coming. No one's there."

Pepper turned and stared blankly at the computer monitors around him. Then, mumbling weakly, he said, "Star Fox. Where are you?"

II

"You have to relax," the surgeon said. "We must perform the operation before infection sets in."

Bobo squirmed, fearfully watching the shiny blade in the doctor's hand and the masked assistants glower down at him. Behind them, he saw his friends, watching and offering what encouragement they could.

"Why can't I get anesthesia?" Bobo whimpered.

"I told you already," the surgeon said patiently. "There is a limited supply of anesthesia here, and we need what there is for the more critical operations. With the local anesthesia, you won't feel a thing. _Trust_ me."

A white curtain was set up over Bobo's waist, blinding him from the operation, and the surgeon began. He instantly knew that the surgeon had lied just to get him to calm down. He felt no pain, that was certain, but he definitely felt _something._ He felt intense pressure at the top of his leg; then, to his great distress, he felt the pressure deeper and deeper down. At the right moment, Tom came down and squeezed Bobo's hand.

"Hey," Tom said. "Aren't you excited? You're going to have a robot leg! Imagine what you could do with it! I mean, if you ever got in a fistfight with a robot, well… the odds would be even! Heck, they may even be in your favor, since you've got the instincts and cunning of a cat!"

Bobo smiled. "Yeah," he said. "It would be kinda cool. I could kick down doors, and…"

"Finished!" the surgeon said cheerfully. He removed the curtain, and Bobo saw the stump of his left leg, covered with a white bandage. His ears drooped.

"Don't worry," the surgeon said with a smile. "We're just about to install your new leg. The engineers are having some difficulties getting the last bits and pieces together, but before you could say "Bobo the Bionic Hero," we'll…"

Suddenly, commotion began to rise again in the camp. An officer came over to the surgeon, whispered something fierce in his ear, and departed.

"Sorry, kid," the surgeon said, preparing to put Bobo on a stretcher to be taken into a transport. "The order has been given to evacuate. We'll get your new leg on sometime, but not now. In the meantime, use these crutches." The assistants got Bobo on the stretcher, and whisked him away.

Tom, meanwhile, confronted one of the officers. "What's going on?" he demanded. "The last thing these patients need is to be boarded onto some transports and taken on a space flight!"

"A direct command from Corneria," the officer said sternly. "Katina is to be evacuated, and all transports escorted to a safe location. War, I'm afraid, exists. And there's no sense in leaving the wounded behind on a conquerable planet."

With that, the officer left, and Tom was escorted into a nearby transport.

III

Admiral Moss sat quietly in his quarters, concentrating on a game of chess between him and his assistant robot. He was aware that his fleet was away, fighting battles on multiple planets, and that he was required to lead them. But, at the moment, neither war worried him; he was in a very good position, both in the Lylat campaign and in his chess game, and he knew it.

"Admiral Moss," the intercom called. "We have the status reports you requested ready on the bridge."

Moss grabbed his queen and set it down across the board. "Checkmate," he muttered, standing up.

"Good game," the robot said dully. It began clearing the board, while Moss stood up and walked away.

"What's the status of the campaign?" Moss said, once he was in the main bridge.

One of the officers on the bridge volunteered the report. "Fortuna has just been taken, sir, and the military units we tracked on their way there have been eliminated. We've also sent units to take Katina and capture whoever was left, but we found the planet deserted. Our scientists estimate that they left the planet not long ago."

"Send some units to track them down," Moss ordered. "Now, then. What of Macbeth? Has it been taken yet?"

"Not yet, sir," the officer said. "A small air force and a great naval force have put up quite a resistance. Our forces there may need backup."

"Then give it to them," Moss cried. "We have plenty of support, and we still have the advantage. In the meantime, find those Katinan refugees!"

IV

_Fox found himself in the main building of the Air Force Academy on Katina. The winding hallways were sparkling new, but unknown to him. He wandered the hallways frantically, passing many friends, old and new, who didn't seem to notice him or his plight._

_Down a short hallway, he saw Peppy, shooting a blaster at some battle robots. Fox approached him._

"_You shouldn't be doing that," Fox warned. "You're too old."_

_Peppy turned, and for the first time, Fox saw that he looked only thirty years old. "No, I'm not," Peppy said, calmly. "You are."_

_Fox looked down and saw that his hands were shriveled, his stomach pudgy, his hair all gray and falling out in clumps, his teeth rotting, and his back hunched. He looked to Peppy for answers, but was met by a blaster in the face._

"_Peppy, what in God's name are you doing?" Fox protested, although in no condition to fight back._

"_It's better this way," Peppy assured him, and he fired._

Suddenly awakened, Fox rolled out of his hospital bed, hit the metal floor, and instantly felt pain in at least five places. He got to his feet, and looked around. He was in some kind of ship, and it was dark. It seemed to be night, for there was no noise, and the occupants of the other medical beds were asleep.

Fox wandered into the cockpit, cradling his bandaged hand with the other arm. The pilot scowled when he saw him.

"What are you doing?" the pilot cried. "You don't belong in here! Get back to bed!"

"I've been flying spacecraft and aircraft longer than you've been alive," Fox replied, sitting down in the copilot seat. "If anyone belongs in here, it's me."

The pilot shrugged, stilly visibly annoyed. "Suit yourself," he said. "But if something happens, and you don't make like a copilot and help me, you're in huge trouble."

Fox nodded, pretending to hear what he was told. His hearing had gotten considerably better since he had fallen asleep, although voices spoken at normal level still sounded like faint mumbles to him. He turned and stared out the main viewport, where swirls of color indicated that they were still in hyperspace. For a long while, the pilot, going by the name of Brett Rockefeller, ignored him.

"So, tell me something, admiral," Brett said, loud enough for Fox to hear. "What exactly is going on around here?"

Fox shook his head. "I haven't spoken with the guys at Corneria since the attack on Macbeth began," he said. "So I wouldn't know. But my guess is these guys are not from Lylat."

The pilot nodded. "Maybe… Andross? Or at least, Andross's army?"

"No," Fox said consciously. "These guys are far too skilled and efficient to be some leftover troops fighting to avenge their former emperor." Fox described to the pilot the ground troops he'd seen on Katina. The pilot whistled.

"If our guys had been that good back when Andross attacked, we would have fended him off, no problem," Brett said. "Um… do you think… they could… take over?"

Fox sighed. "I don't know," he said. "But at the moment, it doesn't look too good."

The lights in the cockpit began to flicker. Brett frowned, staring down at his console. Then the entire transport shook, and both Fox and the pilot were pushed back in their seats with an incredibly high g-force. Sirens wailed, the lights came back on, and the swirls of color outside the ship disappeared.

"What the hell just happened?" Brett cried, grabbing the hair on his head with his fists and looking over the consoles.

"Something drew us out of hyperspace," Fox muttered. He stood up and went over to the radar. "Oh, no."

"T-378 to T-220, come in, over!"

The communications link had come suddenly to life. Fox hunched over the link, struggling to make out what was said.

"We have detected bogeys coming in at 12-5-9, 6-1-4, 11-12-9, 4-8-2… we've been surrounded!"

But Fox had already seen them. Around the small circle of green dots on the radar screen was a huge circle of red dots. And they were closing in.

"Dispatch the Arwings," Fox ordered. The transport shook again, this time by the mighty blast of a turbolaser. "Dispatch the Arwings!" Fox screamed.

"Attention, enemy spacecraft," came a voice on the comm. link. "Your craft is surrounded. That shot was just a warning shot. Surrender or be destroyed."

"Wait," Fox said, and he ducked into the holding area, where the bedridden patients were getting agitated. He ignored their cries and peered out of a small porthole. In the star-speckled distance, he saw one of the transports being drawn in by a much larger ship's tractor beam. He ran back to the cockpit, only to see Brett give the orders for the Arwings to be dispatched.

"Cancel that order," Fox said.

The pilot glared at him. "What, you want to surrender? By dispatching the Arwings, we give ourselves a fighting chance of getting out of here."

"A fighting chance?" Fox said angrily. "There are at least a dozen capital ships out there who could blow us to pieces the moment they're given the chance!"

The comm. link crackled. "Sorry, Fox," said a familiar voice. "But we're not about to become prisoners of war just as the war is beginning."

"Krystal!" Fox cried, but the link had gone dead. Fox looked up in horror as seven Arwings appeared outside the ship.

"We're getting out of here," Brett said, turning the ship towards the nearest planet. "The nearest planet is Zoness. We could make it there in no time."

Fox said nothing. He collapsed in the co-pilot's chair and held his head in his hands. Brett made the calculations for the jump to lightspeed, and pulled the switch. Nothing happened.

"What now?" Brett said.

"The way our ship was brought out of hyperspace probably destroyed the hyperdrive motivator," Fox said miserably.

Brett was unfazed. "Then we'll just have to get there by sublight engines," he said. "It might be an hour or so."

Fox stared out into space, where he was sure that everyone he had ever cared about in his life was about to die on his account.

V

"All right, Star Fox," Falco said over the intercom. "This is our chance to show these guys what we're really made of."

"And to show what these babies can do," Slippy said. To his left, Falco saw Slippy's ship swinging back in forth.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Krystal pointed out.

"Oh yeah," Falco said, rolling his eyes. "All aircraft report."

"Krystal here."

"Slippy here's good to go!"

"This is Alec. All systems go."

"Tom McCloud reporting in."

"Alyssa Darian standing by."

"This is Tiger Dreggar. I'm ready to rock!"

"All right then, Star Fox and Fresh Fox," Falco said, the latter name being a joking reference to the three graduate cadets. "We want to create a diversion. Give the capital ships hell, but don't get yourself killed in the process. Go get 'em!"

The seven ships broke away, each diving in on a large capital ship from above. Each weaved easily out of the way of the turbolaser fire. When they came close enough, they released a barrage of hyper beams into the shield generators, swooped away, and began another run. The other capital ships responded by breaking away from the solitary transport, and closing in on the seven that needed aid.

"I'm getting a lot of enemy fire over here!" Slippy cried. Falco looked, and saw that there were four capital ships chasing him, with at least twenty active turbolaser turrets each. Slippy's ship danced and weaved between the showers of red lasers.

"I've got your back, Slippy," Tom said. He only had one capital ship to worry about, and he had already done considerable damage to it.

"I'm hit!" Tiger cried. "Wow! Those turbolasers pack a punch!"

"Don't stay in the line of fire," Falco warned. "Three or four of those blasts could sap your shields."

When Tom reached Slippy, he locked onto one particular capital ship and released a Nova Bomb. The blast destroyed the main shield generator and several turbolaser turrets.

"Whoo-ee!" Tom shouted, laughing. "That got 'em going!"

The four capital ships turned away from Slippy and began attacking Tom. Slippy, meanwhile, had come in for another run and released a Nova bomb. It wasn't as well placed as Tom's, but it shook up the capital ship well enough.

"Ok, guys," Krystal said, peering out her cockpit, "The transport is getting away. Keep it up so they don't notice it leaving."

"Uh, oh," Tom said. "More bogeys coming in. Interceptor fighters, it looks like."

"Get 'em before they can spread out!" Falco ordered.

Tom dropped a Nova bomb into the docking bay of one capital ship, destroying most of the fighters that were just coming out. Nearby, Slippy did the same. The others followed suit, but in the end, they had destroyed only seven out of fifteen packs of fighters.

"All right, guys," Falco muttered. "Diversion over. Slippy, calculate the jump to lightspeed and transmit the calculation to everyone else's ship."

"But we can take 'em!" Slippy said, eager to continue playing with his new toy.

"We can't attack those fighters and keep the capital ships at bay at the same time, Slip," Falco growled. "Move away from the ships and follow through with your orders."

"Yes, Falco," Slippy said, like a schoolboy obeying a stern teacher. Falco watched his ship drift away, and then turned his attention back to the interceptors. Immediately, he knew something was wrong.

"Cancel that order, Slip." Falco peered at the tiny ships as they flew away from their motherships, toward an unknown destination. "Shit. They noticed the transport."

"Oh, no," Krystal whispered.

"New orders," Falco said. "Track down those fighters and protect the transport. Don't let them destroy it!"

"You got it!"

"Roger that."

"I'm on my way!"

"Let's go!"

"Don't worry, Fox! We're coming to help!"

Falco watched the six Arwings turn and give chase to the interceptors, then followed suit. The capital ships behind them fanned out, creating a barrier. Falco knew that this was a one-way trip; there was no way they would be able to make the jump to lightspeed now.

"Hit 'em with their backs turned!" Krystal yelled.

The Arwings opened fire on the fleeing interceptors, and Falco noticed with a smile orange fireballs bursting in the pack. Almost immediately, a group of interceptors turned around to counter-attack.

"Shields up," Falco said. "Here they come!"

The Arwings shifted power to their shields and fired on the interceptors with less powerful twin blasters. Falco turned to bring one interceptor in his sights, squeezed off three green blasts, and zoomed right past the damaged interceptor. Pretty soon, every one of the bogeys was behind the Arwings, and only a few had been destroyed.

"Never mind them," Falco said. "Keep your shields up, watch your radar, but _don't abandon the transport._"

"I've got some on my tail!" Krystal cried. "Three or four, it looks like… I'm taking damage!"

"Alec, you help her out," Falco said irritably. "Everyone else, keep on the transport!"

Alec did a barrel roll, came up from behind Krystal, and destroyed her pursuers. Krystal thanked him, only to be greeted by another cry for help. Alec himself had a few bogeys on his six. Pretty soon, there were none without a follower on their tail.

"Falco," Tiger said, "I'm sorry to say it, but… if we don't take these guys, we're all dead."

"Didn't they teach you evasion tactics at school, Tiger?" Falco growled.

"Screw this, I'm goin' for it!"

"I'm with you, Tiger!"

"No!" Falco shouted, but he saw it was too late. All but Krystal and Alec had abandoned him to take on their pursuers head on.

Falco turned, expecting to see the remaining interceptors close in around the transport, but instead saw an image that was much worse. A group of interceptors and bombers had come from above, creating a pincer movement on the transport.

"The transport is under attack!" Falco cried. "Get back here, _now!_"

The others had finished their little dogfight, but they were too late. The interceptors now buzzed around the transport like bees, while the bombers swooped downward for attack runs.

"Destroy the bombers!" Falco ordered.

Four Arwings appeared from behind to take that order. They managed to bring down one or two bombers each, but could not prevent the first bomber from dropping its load squarely on top of the transport.

The bomb exploded, taking with it several interceptors. Falco saw the brief flicker of shields being depleted, and then saw the hull begin to burn up. Alyssa brought the last bomber into her sights and destroyed it, but the damage had already been done. The transport was a dead stick.

Their target doomed to crash on the planet Zoness below, the interceptors broke away and flew straight at the seven Arwings. Falco screamed one order after another, but his words fell flat. The Arwings were quickly thrown into the defensive, and immediately abandoned all order and reason. Extensive damage was taken before they collectively decided to retreat to the planet below. Falco remained alone in the orbit of Zoness, firing wildly, taking down interceptor after interceptor. But he, also, took heavy damage, damage to both wings and his main engines, and within moments he found himself spiraling down toward the greenish-yellow sphere that was Zoness.

Through his cracked view port, beyond the flashing red lights and escaping oxygen, Falco saw the interceptors retreating. They weren't planning on following the Arwings to the surface of the planet.

But, Falco realized, they wouldn't have to.

VI

"Mayday, mayday! Crash landing imminent! Reroute all power to the rear repulsorlifts! Keep the ship's velocity from reaching lethal speeds! Warning!"

Pressed back in his seat with the force of ten times Corneria's gravity, Fox could do nothing but listen to the pilot drone on frantically, and stare out of the main viewport at the fire that enveloped the falling transport, and the approaching ocean miles below. Behind him, Fox could hear the screams of the medical patients bouncing back and forth in the cargo hold.

"G-diffuser failed!" the pilot cried. "G-forces climbing!"

Fox felt the skin collect at the back of the chair, pulled tightly across his face. His eyes watered, and all he could do was moan between clenched teeth at the pain.

At last, the rear repulsorlifts began to have an impact, and the transport was no longer shooting downward like a rocket. It began to level out, and Fox's weight began to go down.

Fox almost started to relax, when the pilot yelled, "Velocity still well above fatal! Selecting a suitable crash zone!"

Fox swallowed. He watched as the ocean drew closer and closer. His immobile body burned with adrenaline as the ship brushed past a tall, jagged pillar of stone. The water seemed to rush up to meet him.

The ship skidded against the water, throwing Fox forward, bounced up, and came crashing down. Fox's seatbelt strained to hold him to his seat. The ship rocked with incredible force, the consoles broke and spat sparks, and the main viewport shattered, allowing gallons of oily water to rush into the cockpit. At last, with a final dive into the sand, the transport came to a stop on a shallow portion of water near a rocky island.

Fox unbuckled himself and stood up, kicking the water at his feet. He glared at the pilot, drenched in sweat and panting, as he laid his head on the blackened console.

Fox went into the back, stumbling over cables and uprooted floor panels. He glanced into the dark cargo hold, and nearly vomited.

The stench of blood was everywhere. Beds were overturned; patients lay sprawled on the floor, either motionless or just barely moving.

"Mr. McCloud?" came a weak voice from the back.

Fox rushed over to Bobo. His head was bleeding, but otherwise, he seemed fine. Fox asked anyway.

"I think I'm ok," Bobo mumbled, putting his hand on his head. He looked down at his hand, red with blood, and gave out a cry.

"You'll be fine," Fox said. "Come, let's get out of here. Can you walk?"

Bobo grabbed for his crutches and got to his feet, swaying slightly. He put his hand back on his head. Fox led him to the cockpit, and asked if he could wade to the nearby island.

Bobo climbed through the smashed-in view port and leapt into the water with a splash. It came up to his waist.

"Ok, Bobo," Fox said. "Now, see if you can make it to that island. If the water gets too deep, just come back."

"This water smells funny," Bobo called, wrinkling his nose.

"Don't worry about that," Fox said. "Just… don't drink it."

Bobo walked for a while using the crutches, but then he noticed how useless they were in the water, and instead began dog paddling, using his one leg every once in a while to kick off the bottom.

"How are they?" Brett said. Fox turned to look at him. He was leaning against the sizzling panel, and was still panting. "The patients, I mean."

"Worse," Fox growled. "Half of them are likely to die, if they aren't dead already."

Brett shook his head. "Well," he said, "at least we survived the crash. And those guys aren't likely to come back here."

"What do you know about Zoness, pray tell?" Fox asked calmly.

Brett shrugged. "There's not much life here, aside from the creatures in the sea," he said. "Just some low-income housing on the bigger land masses."

"…And factories," Fox pointed out. "Some of which produce military equipment."

Brett closed his eyes, and said nothing.

"If they come down," Fox continued. "And they find us, we're all as good as dead. They will show us hardly a fraction of the mercy they would have shown had we surrendered. All because _you_ had to be bold and daring."

The pilot shook his head. "Shut up," he whispered.

But Fox, having been nearly deaf for almost a day, was beginning to master the art of lip-reading. "Because of your fool-hardiness," Fox said, getting very near to Brett, "these war victims, having just escaped one battle, will die in another. Unnecessarily. And if we aren't rescued, we could all die. Because of you."

"I said _shut up!_" Brett roared, jumping to his feet.

"Insubordination, eh?" Fox taunted. "Well, you better hope you don't make it out of here, because your military career is pretty much shot now."

The pilot got close to Fox's face and snarled. "Do you think I have to listen to you anymore?" he said. "You're old and useless. Your knowledge is ancient. If anyone learns about what happened here, they'll praise me for giving us a chance to escape, and to be _free._ The very foundation of our republic. You? You would surrender the moment anyone posed a threat, if it gave you the chance to avoid confrontations. And I thought I knew who the legendary Star Fox was. You aren't even worthy of being a legend."

With a final violent motion, the pilot turned away and disappeared into the cargo hold.

VII

In the sky above Zoness, shrouded in flame, a solitary object rocketed to the surface. From far-off, it would have appeared to be a meteorite. But if one somehow got close enough to see beyond the fire, one would see that it was really a wounded Arwing, spiraling down toward its doom.

Inside, countless warnings flashed the various consoles, and flashing lights lit up the cockpit, which was now being powered by a dwindling auxiliary power source. One console showed the altitude, which was dropping hundreds of meters per second. In the midst of this chaos, a gloved hand reached out and smashed a glass covering over a large button. Pistons hissed, filling the cockpit with steam, and the canopy broke away, rocketing the pilot away.

Even though his descent had been hindered by the upward force of the ejection thrusts, the pilot was still dropping like a stone. He pulled a cord attached to his suit, and a large parachute erupted from his pack. The pilot was jerked upward as the parachute caught the rising air, but it was not quite enough to guarantee a safe landing. The pilot had ejected too late. In the distance, he saw his fiery craft strike the ocean, sending great splashes of water and tiny bits of metal high into the air, and then turned to meet his own fate.

The pilot struck the water, a stinging sensation instantly cover the surface area of his body, and sank deep down before the buoyant force brought his body to a halt. His helmet fell away, revealing his face as that of Falco Lombardi.

Falco tore his pack away and looked around frantically, desperate to find the surface in that murky water. Below, emerging from the black, murky depths, a snake-like creature rose up, jaws open and pointed in his direction. Letting a cluster of bubbles escape from his mouth, Falco swam away, fighting the current that dragged him in the opposite direction. At the last moment, the creature turned away, clamped its jaws around a nearby fish, and disappeared.

Relieved, Falco turned his eyes toward the brightness above and swam that way. The brightness did not seem to get any closer, and as he began to fade, Falco wondered with terror how deep he really was. He struck out his limbs desperately, swimming with all his power. Stars began to fill his field of vision.

At last, Falco broke the surface. He spat out a mouthful of oily water, took a deep breath, and looked around fearfully. The water that looked tranquil from above rocked him violently, and most of his strength had been used in trying to get to the surface. He turned a full circle until finally seeing a large landmass to the west. He began to swim toward it.

But the merciless ocean was not about to let him escape so easily. For every two meters he swam, the current dragged him back one and a half meters. He was making very little progress, and his energy was draining quickly.

Falco looked up at the landmass, but was suddenly dunked by a wave. He bobbed back up, saw the landmass for another moment, and then was dunked again. The landmass was considerably closer now, and Falco could almost imagine that he could see an Arwing parked on top. He now swam with a sudden new strength, calling for help every moment his head was above the water.

When his feet struck land, he tried walking the rest of the way, but found that he didn't have the energy. He then proceeded to crawl.

When at last he reached dry land, he crawled several paces, and collapsed. He coughed forcefully, taking deep breaths between coughs. His face lay flat on the rocky shore, his left arm extended toward the Arwing. After a moment of lying in this position, his mind began to reorder itself, until he was aware that his left hand was touching something other than rock. Something… cotton. He closed his hand around it. It was an eyepatch.

Falco became aware of something else. The sun was shining brightly, but he was shrouded in darkness. He was lying in someone's shadow. He looked up, blinking away the droplets that fell into his eyes. He shuddered from the cold as he stared into the figure's face.

"I would never have imagined that such strength resided in your body," the figure said, speaking with a sophisticated accent. "You always had been a formidable foe, Falco."

Falco looked down, coughing up the last of the water in his lungs. Under his breath, he muttered one word.

"Leon."


	7. Ruin

I

General Pepper was awakened by a gentle rubbing of his shoulder. He sat up suddenly, rubbing his eyes as if in disbelief of his shameful act. Had he actually fallen asleep at the console?

"How long have I been asleep?" he muttered, looking at the one who had wakened him. It was a lieutenant under his command.

"A few hours," The lieutenant said. "But we have taken control of the situation in here, so there was no need to wake you. However, the situation has taken a turn for the worse, and they asked for me to tell you about it."

Pepper grumbled. No matter how dire the situation was, he was old, and his body couldn't take the endless stress that endured the day and the night.

"Well, what's the report?"

"Two more planets have been taken," the lieutenant said. "Titania and Sauria."

Pepper frowned. "Sauria?"

"Dinosaur Planet."

Pepper nodded. "Was there anyone at either planet before they were taken?"

"None, sir. That is, there were no military units. Aside from the indigenous creatures, the only traces of civilization on either planet were a few outposts, who were able to send a few weak emergency signals before being silenced."

Pepper shook his head. Neither planet was of great strategic value, but the enemy was spreading its influence nevertheless. That couldn't be a good thing. "Are there any planets left that haven't been conquered, besides Corneria?"

The lieutenant glanced at a nearby hologram, and returned with grim news. "Aquas, Zoness and Macbeth," he said. "The navy at Macbeth has been holding off the enemy for nearly a day now, and a small naval force has been protecting Aquas from bombardment, but neither planet can be considered secure. Zoness hasn't been attacked yet, although it remains defenseless."

"And who's defending us? Who's protecting Corneria?"

"A small percentage of the Cornerian Republican Squadron stayed behind when forces were sent to defend Fortuna. There's also a small naval force still here. Aside from that, the only military force protecting Corneria is the Cornerian Army."

Pepper remembered the destruction Andross had caused on Corneria, when there was a force not much smaller than the one at present defending the planet. And, when he thought about how easily the enemy had conquered more than half of Lylat in only a few days, he decided that he didn't like the odds. He stood up.

"Where's Admiral Fox McCloud?" Pepper asked.

"Nobody knows, sir," the lieutenant said. "We lost contact with the transports leaving Katina."

Pepper swore under his breath. He strode quickly over to the naval corner of the War Room and confronted the technician there.

"Bring Commodore Jerry Python up," Pepper ordered.

The technician, startled by Pepper's appearance and frightened by the fierceness in his voice, obeyed without a word. Moments later, a distorted image of Jerry Python's broad green face appeared.

"Hello, General Pepper!" Jerry Python said brightly. "Good news! The navy has managed to fend off the enemy. We're now pursuing them across the planet to…"

"Very good, commodore," Pepper said. "Now, pass along the order for the navy to be withdrawn to Corneria."

Jerry Python looked shocked. After a moment of silence, he protested, "B-but General Pepper, if we abandon Macbeth, the enemy will take it over! And… and… we're _winning_ this battle!"

"And you're about to lose the war!" Pepper roared. "Having the navy all the way out there leaves Corneria open to attack! Return to Corneria _immediately_!"

Jerry Python was silent. Then, finally, he answered, "Yes, sir," and ended the link.

General Pepper glanced over at a grid of computer screens, each showing a section of space above Corneria. "Now," he muttered, "let's hope that it's not too late."

II

Falco stood motionless on the rocky shore, showing no emotions as he was faced with four armed mercenaries, headed by none other than Leon Powalski. Behind them, Falco saw what he had mistaken earlier for an Arwing. It was the nearest of four new Wolfens belonging to the mercenaries.

"Allow me to introduce you to my team," Leon said with false courtesy. He began with the mercenary to his right, a stout lizard, and worked his way to his left. "This is Johnny Caiman, former lieutenant in Andross's army. He first met you and your team in Area 6 Venom Air Defense Zone, where you destroyed every one of his friends in Andross's service."

Johnny Caiman raised his pistol and tipped it in Falco's direction, as if tipping a hat. "Charmed," he said monotonously.

Leon stepped aside, to reveal a gray fox standing behind him. "Dorian Sly," he said. "Newest member of our team." Lastly, he pointed to the cat standing to his left. "Last but not least, Rita Slax, our team assassin. Whatever job we can't do in the sky, she does on the ground." Rita drew a long, sharp knife and began sharpening it with a stone.

Falco hardly gave a glance in each member's direction. He kept his eyes on Leon.

"This is the new Star Wolf team," Leon said proudly. "I took the liberty of replacing my fallen comrades with the deadliest mercenaries and assassins in Lylat's underground. I see you've performed quite a similar task, only instead you chose amateur fighters who are very close to your friends. What a shame it would be if your team was killed in action."

"Why did you come back?" Falco growled. "Did you feel like avenging your old teammates by getting an unfair advantage over us?"

Leon laughed. "Of course not," he said. "That's the kind of trickery I would expect of you! But no, our actions have been carried through under the command of our latest 'client.'"

"And who might that be?" Falco asked cautiously.

Just then, the collective noises of hundreds of fighters drifted down from the sky. Falco looked up, and saw a squadron of enemy interceptors, fanning out to search the planet. Falco looked down at Leon, only to find him smiling.

"Admiral Reccal Moss of the Karzenian Navy," Leon answered. "He hired us to destroy the Star Fox team." Leon raised a pistol to Falco's forehead. "Beginning with you."

A sudden chorus of laser blasts and explosions broke out, destroyed the continual hum of interceptors flying above. Leon turned sharply to see, while Falco swiped at his extended arm, knocking the blaster out of his hand. Falco quickly turned and struck out his right, connecting it with Leon's jaw. Leon fell, and behind him, three trained mercenaries quickly drew their weapons.

But Falco was quicker. He dropped to the ground, evading three shots to the head, landed on top of Leon, rolled, and stood up, holding Leon up as a shield.

"Shoot and your leader's toast!" Falco yelled.

The three mercenaries lowered their weapons, but kept their eyes locked on Falco.

"You'll never get away," Leon gasped. His face was covered in blood, and Falco's grip on him barely allowed enough oxygen to pass into his lungs for him to stay conscious. "The moment your back is turned, they'll blow your brains out!"

But Falco was prepared for that. With one arm locked around Leon's neck, he reached for his own blaster and pressed it hard against the lizard's temple.

"Drop your weapons," Falco ordered. The mercenaries hesitated. "I said _drop your weapons!_"

"Do as he says!" Leon cried.

The three reluctantly dropped their weapons, and at a motion of Falco's blaster, walked away from them. Falco pushed Leon away, where he joined his fellow Star Wolf members.

"Now," Falco said, grabbing another blaster from the four that lay on the ground. "Put your hands behind your heads and face that boulder."

The mercenaries did so. With his adversaries disarmed, Falco could finally look up and see what was causing the commotion in the sky. He saw that the enemy fighters, those belonging to the so-called "Karzenian" fleet, were in complete disarray. They were under attack by a fleet of quickly moving ships that he could barely make out.

Soon, a transport landed in the shallow water nearby. The main hatch opened, and a bulldog poked his head out.

"Falco Lombardi, isn't it?" the bulldog said. "We've been ordered to pick you up."

Falco turned and started walking toward the transport, saying, "Ordered by whom, I…"

"_Get down!_"

Falco ducked and rolled as an eight-inch blade whirled through the air, lodging itself into a seam in the transport's hull. Falco turned, blaster raised, but his four "hostages" had disappeared.

"Never mind them," the bulldog yelled, "and never mind who sent me. Let's get the hell out of here!"

Falco acquiesced, and the transport promptly lifted off.

III

Fox sat alone in the cockpit of the wrecked transport, staring at the swirling, discolored ocean outside, while drumming his fingers on the slick console. He could hear the moans of patients in the back as Brett the pilot and several able-bodied personnel struggled to save their lives.

He sat upright and watched as droplets of water flew past the gaping hole of the front view shield. He leaned over and saw Bobo, swimming without the use of his legs, coming back toward the transport with heavy splashing. Fox stood up and leaned against the console, recovering from what could have been a fall due to the uncomfortable angle of the floor.

"Find anything, scout?" Fox called.

Bobo shook his head. He tried climbing back into the ship, but it proved a difficult task with one leg.

"No, no, don't bother," Fox said, crawling through the window. "I'll just come out to you. After all, being in that ship with the smell of blood and molten metal for who knows how long, I need a breath of fresh air, no matter how fresh Zoness's air may be."

Fox leapt into the water with a splash. He repeated his question, and Bobo went into an explanation.

"There's nothing," he said. "There's hardly even sand on that island. It's just a big, ugly chunk of rock. I don't see why anyone would live here."

"That's why there are few who do." Fox squinted up at the sky, although the reflex was unnecessary. Most of Sol's radiant energy was being blocked by the haze and thick clouds overhead. "Zoness used to be a thriving oceanic planet, much like Aquas. But unlike Aquas, its underwater world was full of thick plant life that almost touched the surface. The landmasses were just as desolate as they are now, but they were sandy and more pleasing to the eye.

"Andross changed all that. When he began his conquest for Lylat, he started with the outer planets first, Zoness included. Because of how much water there was on Zoness, he thought it would serve as an excellent industrial planet, seeing as he wouldn't have to haul the waste and garbage to the dump. He set up multiple factories on Zoness, which were extremely productive, but pumped out tons of harmful wastes into the ocean. The oceans became so polluted that the planet's color viewed from space had changed from a deep blue to a yellowish green. Most of the underwater life died, and what were left was hardy and vicious. The chemicals in the water that surrounded the landmasses changed their sandy beaches into brittle rock. Fortunately, Aquas was spared the dreadful metamorphosis, and instead was used for underwater research facilities designed to create Andross's notorious 'bio-weapons.'

"When we destroyed Andross's headquarters on Venom and liberated Zoness, there was little that could be done. The planet was beyond repair, and the creatures that now lived in the seas wouldn't respond well to unpolluted water. We finally decided to use it the way Andross had used it, as an industrial planet for producing various materials."

Bobo thought for a moment. Then, he said, "If this planet produces things, then, wouldn't those invaders want to take it?"

Fox sighed. "That's why I was so upset with the pilot. We can only hope that…" He trailed off. Fox squinted harder in a portion of the sky to the east. He could see something in the midst of the smog and clouds, but couldn't quite verify his speculation…

"Admiral McCloud! Look! Ships!"

Fox nodded. "I see them," he said, not taking his eyes off the four black specks that slowly soared up through the atmosphere.

"No! Over there! To the north!"

Fox turned, and, much closer than the others he had seen, there was a group of fighters coming their way. Their marks didn't match those of the ones they had encountered on Katina. At the back of the group was a transport; and it was circling around to land.

Fox looked back, but the four black specks were gone. While Bobo and Brett the pilot helped the patients out of the crashed ship and toward the rescue one, Fox pondered his discovery. He was almost certain that what he had seen were four new Wolfens. It was the first time he had seen a Wolfen in over twenty years.

But if his guess was correct, he thought while wading toward the open transport, it probably wouldn't be the last.

IV

Falco sat comfortably in the transport, a towel around his neck. In the seat across from him, the bulldog sat, staring. When the transport lifted off once again, Falco was greeted by Fox and Bobo.

"Hey, you're alive," Fox said with a smile.

"You, too." Falco's eyes scanned Fox's body. "You look like crap."

"Thanks." Fox sat in a nearby seat. Bobo sat down next to him.

"So, you still haven't told us who you guys are," Falco said to the bulldog. "And why you saved our butts."

The bulldog shrugged. "First, let me begin by letting you know who _I_ am," he said. "My name's Rhino Kucanitch. I'm, ironically, the captain of what we most commonly refer to as 'Bulldog Unit.'"

Fox's eyes brightened. "So you mean…"

"That's right, Fox!" crackled a voice over the intercom. "Once again, I have to go out of my way to bail you out of trouble!"

"Bill!" Fox cried. He jumped to his feet, but was knocked down by the rocking motions of the transport breaking through the atmosphere. "Bill Grey!"

"That's Colonel Bill Grey to you, Fox," Bill said with a laugh. "And you really owe us some thanks! Those invading reptiles had just reached Zoness and were preparing to take it over!"

Fox was startled. "So, you're not staying to defend it?"

"Nope," Bill said quickly. "Me and my squadron aren't exactly government funded any more. We're a mercenary squadron now, in a sense. And Pepper hired us to pick you guys up and bring you back to base. Besides, we're needed more at Corneria."

"Why?" Fox asked, although he feared the answer.

"I'll tell you later," Bill said. "We're just about to make the jump to lightspeed. Once we're in hyperspace, I'll go back there and explain it all." The intercom shut off with a click.

"Did you guys pick up the others yet?" Fox said to Rhino, suddenly worried.

Rhino nodded. "I already explained it to Falco here," he said. "But your friends were picked up by another transport. They took a while longer, since your friends' landing sites were so scattered. But, thanks to the emergency beacon that automatically goes off when these new Arwings are shot down, we were able to get out of there before enemy reinforcements arrived."

Fox turned and looked out the nearby view port. He could see most of the yellow-green sphere in the black backdrop, as the squadron was getting far enough so that it would be safe enough to make the jump to lightspeed. Fox could almost see the enemy swarming the smog-filled skies above Zoness, and wondered how many other planets had already succumbed to the invading force. But when he thought about the reasoning behind not defending Zoness, a key industrial planet and therefore a key tactical point for any invader, the reasoning became clear.

They were losing the war.

V

"So, all the prisoners are being held in the grand interrogation room, correct?"

Admiral Moss walked swiftly and impatiently down one of many corridors in the _Harbinger_, asking questions of the officer, Sarian Trenton, walking near him. They reached an elevator, and Trenton, punching the correct floor in the keypad, breathed a response.

"Yes, sir. Even the immobile ones are there, in hospital beds."

"And they've been sorted out according to their ranks?"

"Yes, sir. It took a bit of time, since their insignias and uniforms are vastly different from our own, but…"

"I'm not interested in the details. When I ask for reports, I want the ends, not the means." The elevator stopped with a cheerful chime, and Moss walked quickly out into the new hallway. The officer hurried after him. "Now, then," Moss said, not looking behind him to see if the officer had caught up. "The prisoners' transports have been shipped to the production-class capital ship, the _Silent Conqueror_?"

"Yes, sir." The officer hesitated. "But, they asked me to remind you that scrapping the captured transports to be made into new ships is almost unnecessary, as we still have a sufficient number of ships to win this…"

"I like to keep my numbers high in my battles," Moss interrupted. "The Karzen system is too far away to call for reinforcements, and the industrial planets we've captured will take a while to be fitted to our needs, so if for any reason we need more ships, we should be able to construct them on the spot."

They reached the entrance to the grand interrogation room, a soundproofed door with no window. Moss took a deep breath. Interrogation rooms never smelled pleasant.

"Let me do the talking," Moss said. "You will only speak if I tell you to speak, as always."

"Yes, sir," Trenton said. The door slid open.

The room was much larger than standard interrogation rooms, although the ceiling was still quite low, to provide a feeling of entrapment. The walls were made of impure metals, mostly flat black and gray. On both sides of the room were torture devices that the prisoners had never seen before, and at which they shot nervous glances. The prisoners stood (or lay, if they were the immobile hospital patients) in the center of the room, surrounded by guards wearing faceless masks. Moss stopped in front of them, feet shoulder-width apart, hands behind his back, and stared. The prisoners met Admiral Moss's stare, although they couldn't help but steal glances at the torture devices that stood mere feet away. They were clearly terrified.

"You needn't worry," Moss said gently. "You all surrendered graciously; a wise tactic in the face of unbeatable opposition. I am no monster, and because you made such an intelligent decision (unlike that other transport, which was promptly destroyed) I will do no harm to you as long as you follow my commands."

The prisoners showed no signs of understanding, although most of them seemed to relax. Admiral Moss turned toward the guard to his far right. "Bring the prisoner of highest rank to me."

The guards grabbed a uniformed dog standing at the front and dragged him closer to Moss. The dog grimaced and tensed his muscles, glaring at the arms that held him.

"So," Moss said, standing tall and staring down at the miserable dog. "You're Captain 'Tank' Reynolds."

"That's Captain _Brutus_ Reynolds to you," Tank growled.

Admiral Moss smiled. "As you very well know, Brutus," he began, "the Karzenian Navy… that's us, if you didn't know by now… is in the middle of a conquest that you cannot win. Already, we've conquered all but one planet. That planet, if my contacts are correct, is the heart of the system in every possible way. That planet is Corneria. We know that the planet is strong and well defended. That's where you come in.

"We are on the verge of a large-scale attack on Corneria. We've left a minimal force to occupy the captured planets, and have drawn the rest towards this ship. Even so, we know the battle won't be easy. There will be many casualties on each side. But you can prevent this unnecessary tragedy if you follow this order."

Tank glared at Moss, his eyes fixed on the cold, unfeeling pupils in the admiral's reptilian eyes. "And what's that?" he asked.

Moss showed him a sheet of paper. "You will read this statement," he said, "on a transmission to the military base on Corneria, requesting their surrender."

"I will do no such thing!" Tank declared.

Moss sighed. "You're aware, then, that I'm under no obligation to spare your life, if you do not follow my order?"

Tank spat at him, the spittle landing on Moss's left cheek. The admiral cried out in disgust and wiped the tainted spot clean.

"I've tried being fair with you barbarians," Moss growled. "Rather than put you defenseless creatures to death, I gave you the chance to spare your world a devastating and humiliating final defeat. Even giving your world the _chance_ to surrender was a gracious act that I could have done without. Then what? You reject my offer with a spray of your filthy bodily fluid like the wild beast you are! Guards! Show him no mercy!"

The guards dragged Tank shouting and kicking to the nearest torture device. As they strapped him in, Moss brought forth the next in command: the timid pilot of the first transport.

"And you are… Captain Duncan," Moss said.

The pilot looked down at the ground. The torture machine near him had come to life, and Tank was now crying out in pain.

"You understand my conditions?" Moss asked quietly, waving the sheet of paper in Captain Duncan's face. "You read this to the leaders on Corneria, and you will all be spared, regardless of their reaction. If not, I will have to resort to this…" He waved a hand in Tank's direction. Drops of blood were flying from the writhing captain's body. "…and I will continue down the ranks, down to the last, bedridden civilian. Understood?"

Tank was now screaming wildly. Captain Duncan kept his eyes down, and muttered, "Yes."

Admiral Moss handed him the sheet of paper. "Will you read this during a transmission to Corneria?" he said.

Captain Duncan skimmed the lines. His eyes widened. "You'll kill us if they don't surrender?" he cried.

"No," Moss said, raising his voice so he could be heard over the tortured screams of Tank Reynolds. "That's a little white lie I threw in there to sweeten the pot. Will you read it?"

"How do I know you aren't lying to _us_?" the pilot retorted.

Moss shrugged and looked away. "If you won't read it, then I guess I have no choice. Guards…"

"Wait!" Captain Duncan looked down again. The side of his left shoe and the left side of his pants were sprinkled with red blood. "I… I'll read it," he said gloomily.

Moss smiled. "Good," he said. He turned to the guards to his left. "Take him to the communications room and tell the technicians to prepare a link with Corneria."

The guards whisked Captain Duncan away. Moss took one last look at Tank, whose screams were getting weaker. He turned and left the room.

VI

When the transport came out of hyperspace, and the milky blue planet of Corneria appeared in his view port, Fox let out a sigh of relief and relaxed his muscles. He was home.

Bill stood up and walked toward the cockpit. "Excuse me, guys," he said with a wry grin. "I gotta practice my diplomatic skills with this orbit security."

Bill walked into the cockpit and sat down in the pilot's seat. Almost immediately, the comm. link crackled, and a hoarse voice said, "Unidentified squadron! You are entering Cornerian Air Space! Identify yourselves or we will not hesitate to open fire!"

Bill held up his hands. "Chill out, dude," he said. "This is Bill Grey of the Dogfighters Rogue Squadron. We're coming back from a mission on direct orders from General Pepper."

The link was silent for a moment. Then, "We will see to confirming your story. Do _not_ proceed without our consent, or we _will_ destroy your squadron." The link switched off.

Falco entered the cockpit. He stood behind Bill with his arms folded across his chest. "These Karzenian creeps have got Corneria all edgy."

Bill looked at him. "Car-who-now?" he said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yep. That's what they're called. I learned it on my 'vacation' on Zoness," Falco said with a nod. "Our 'friends' finally have a name."

Bill stared off into space. "Karzen… that name sounds familiar somehow." He shrugged. "I dunno. When you spend time in Lylat's underground, you hear a lot of names, and you get a lot of names mixed up. But I'm pretty sure I've heard that name before."

Falco opened his mouth, about to tell him about his encounter with Star Wolf, but the comm. link came to life again.

"Permission to enter granted," the voice said. "We will open the force field long enough for all ships present to enter. All existing stragglers will have to acquire access permission individually. Proceed."

"Thanks a bunch," Bill said quickly. Through the main view port, they could see a hole open in the shimmering blue layer around the planet. Bill gently applied thrust to the ship's engines.

When the squadron came into the atmosphere and broke through the cloud layer, they leveled out and flew along the rolling green hills of one of Corneria's many countrysides. When at last the cityscape of Corneria City appeared, Fox could tell that things had changed since he left. Civilian traffic had gone down considerably, and military personnel from every branch hurried frantically along the streets and through buildings, bringing equipment and vehicles to places where they were needed.

The two transports touched down on a large landing pad attached to the Army Headquarters, while the rest of the squadron circled around in the sky. When the bottom hatch opened and Fox stepped out, he took a deep breath of true Cornerian air, and looked around, surveying the city. Soon, he heard a cry of joy from the other transport. He turned, and saw his wife, Krystal, running in for a tearful hug.

Fox opened his arms and embraced his wife. Krystal leapt into his arms and squeezed him tightly, teardrops running down her face and soaking the insignia on the right shoulder of Fox's tattered uniform.

"You made it, Fox," Krystal whispered with a smile, her voice trembling. "I was so worried that… oh, God, I was so worried."

"It's all right," Fox said, patting Krystal on the back. "I'm here. I'm alive."

Soon, Alec Falan appeared from the transport, followed by Tiger Dreggar, then Alyssa Darien, Slippy Toad, then, finally, Thomas McCloud.

Tom walked ahead of the group, and started laughing. Fox turned around, and saw, standing behind him, Bobo Simons, with the sawed-off pole of a broom attached to the stump on his left leg.

"You never got the robotic leg attached, I see," Tom said, still laughing.

Bobo stuck his chest out. "For your information," he said, "_I've_ just been through a test of survival in the ocean on Zoness!"

"Likewise," Tom said. "After I bailed out of my Arwing, I spent my entire time on Zoness hanging for dear life on a rock spire in the middle of the ocean, while carnivorous creatures circled me, hungrily."

Fox smiled. "I'm glad to see you all made it, Tom," he said.

Behind him, Falco was descending the steps down to the concrete platform. Krystal watched him with a smile, but her smile disappeared when she saw the worried grimace on Falco's face.

"What is it?" Krystal asked quietly, getting close to him.

Falco only had time to look at her, when, suddenly, sirens began to wail all over the city. They looked around fearfully, but they knew only too well what was happening.

"Get inside!" Bill shouted. "I'll get the rest of these passengers to the hospital. Go, now!"

Fox nodded, and the entire group rushed into the Army Headquarters. Bill looked up; enemy bombers had already broken through the Cornerian Orbit Defense, and were now descending onto the city. He climbed into the transport, and, ordering the Dogfighters Squadron to come to his defense, took off.


	8. Standoff

I

For the first time in days, it was dead quiet in the War Room on Corneria. General Pepper stood at the end of the room, his arms folded behind his back, his face rigid and grim. After a brief greeting, he had ordered Star Fox and the Air Force cadets to sit at a large round table, where several officers from differing branches of the military were waiting.

"Here's the situation," General Pepper began. "Invading forces, which, according to Falco Lombardi of the Star Fox team, are from the Karzen system, have conquered most of the Lylat system. They began by attacking Macbeth, but we know now that this was a feint attack; hours later, they came down hard on Katina, destroying both the base and the Air Force Academy. After a brief respite, they returned, capturing both Katina and Fortuna. From that point forward, they attacked each planet swiftly and viciously, and although a few of these planets put up good defenses, we thought it necessary to draw all forces to Corneria. Now, Corneria remains alone unoccupied."

Pepper paused. The faces at the table were downcast, and, for the most part, afraid.

"An hour before Bill Grey and his Dogfighters Rogue Squadron returned," Pepper continued, "we received this message from the flagship of the Karzenian Navy." Pepper pressed a button on the console behind him. A holographic image of the face of a rabbit in a captain's uniform appeared. He was holding a sheet of paper with trembling hands.

"To the military and political leaders on Corneria," the rabbit said shakily. "I am Captain Duncan. My ship and several others were intercepted on our way out of Katina. My gracious capture, Admiral Reccal Moss, wishes for me to forward this message to you. He knows you are ready to fight to the death, but he is willing to offer you an alternative. If you surrender now, he will let Corneria remain a separate planet when the Lylat system is added to the Karzenian Empire. Their laws and regulations will be lenient. It would be as if you were not under their rule at all.

"If you decline, and you force Admiral Moss to spend time and effort whittling down your resistant force until you come to your senses and surrender on your own accord, the treaty will not be so kind. Corneria, as well as the rest of the Lylat system, will become a communist, military state, and they shall show neither the defenseless Prisoners of War with me, or your remaining military any mercy. If you accept, send an unguarded transport with at least one major military leader to this flagship. That is all." The hologram disappeared. The round table was silent. A muffled explosion was heard above, and the room shook slightly.

"As you can tell," Pepper said, shooting a glance upward, "we declined their offer."

"_Why?_" Fox cried, before realizing that he shouldn't have said anything.

"Because," Pepper said sternly, "I believe in the principles of our republic, and I would rather die before I live under a dictatorship! I, for one, do not believe that 'It would be as if we were not under their rule at all.' Even if it began that way, we would most likely gradually turn into a military state. Besides…" Here, Pepper leaned on the table. "We still have time. Our defenses will hold long enough for us to call for aid."

"What about those bombers?" Slippy said, pointing a finger toward the ceiling.

"Don't worry about them," Pepper said, shaking his head. "They are only the beginning. After our defensive forces get themselves organized and provide a counter-attack, the bombers will retreat. They will most likely return later with reinforcements. How much later will depend on how far away this fleet really is."

"Who will come to our aid?" Krystal asked.

Pepper pointed a finger at the four Star Fox members sitting at the table. "That's where you come in," he said. "There are no official military forces left in Lylat, so we'll have to turn to Lylat's underground. We'll need you to split up and find as many mercenaries, bounty hunters, and smugglers who are willing to fight for our money in two days."

Falco raised his hand. "Problem," he said.

Pepper looked quizzically at Falco. "Go ahead."

Falco lowered his hand. "Remember that eye patch, and how I figured it was a sign that Star Wolf was still around? Well, turns out I was right. Sort of. Someone _did_ survive that dogfight on Venom: Leon Powalski. He has a new team with him, and he's getting paid by the Karzenian Navy to destroy Star Fox. Splitting up would make that job far too easy for them."

Pepper's eyes widened. After a moment of thinking, he replied, "On the contrary. Splitting up would erase all wonders people might have about you being a team. Also, since your team lost every single Arwing I got for you, you'll be getting some new, different ships. You'll be getting the most mismatched, ugly ships we have. You ought to be able to blend in."

Falco nodded. Krystal and Slippy were looking at him, horrified. Alec Falan didn't seem to understand the meaning of Star Wolf, so he also nodded.

"Good," Pepper said. "Bill Grey will be going with you, since he's also familiar with the underground. Your ships are waiting in a garage some miles from here. You can take a subterranean shuttle to the garage. Wait until this bombardment subsides if you must, but leave as soon as you can. Time is short!"

The Star Fox team stood up. Tom stood up also, saying, "I'll go with you. You could use some help."

"No, Thomas," Pepper said sharply. "_We_ need you. We're going to need as many pilots as we can get to defend Corneria, and that includes you. Besides, you don't know a lick about the Lylat underground."

"He's right, Tom," Krystal said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Stay here. We'll be fine. Don't worry." Krystal and the Star Fox team walked out of the War Room, and the door shut behind them.

Another explosion rocked the War Room, and this time, grains of fine dust fell from the ceiling. Swearing under his breath, Pepper ordered, "Get these cadets to some Arwings and let 'em go!" and walked to the Air Force console, flicking switches. The War Room was once again alive with activity.

II

When the War Room's metal doors locked shut with a resonating click, Tom could only hear the sound of the approaching footsteps of a squad of grim guards from behind. The first of these nudged Tom with his rifle and ordered him to walk down a nearby hallway. The other guards did the same with Alyssa and the others.

"You'd think we were their prisoners, not pilots on their side," Tom muttered to Tiger as they walked down the seemingly endless hallway.

"C'mon, Tom," Tiger whispered back. "You've been in the military long enough to know that there's hardly a difference."

A muffled explosion was heard overhead. The floor vibrated, and the overhanging lights flickered. Tom wondered how bad the damage was already.

They reached what appeared to be an underground transport. Tom, Alyssa and Tiger were ushered into the transport. When they buckled their seatbelts and the tram started, they were going over a hundred miles per hour. The lights illuminating the dark tunnel quickly blurred into a single, bright line.

After two minutes, a time period not long enough to get used to the speed and yet so short as to increase nausea, the tram came to a grinding halt. The doors opened, and after navigating several small corridors, they found themselves in a subterranean docking bay. Arwings in every condition, from brand-new to heavily-damaged to hollowed-out for overhaul, littered the large room, along with stacked boxes, service robots and bustling pilots.

Tom and the others were taken to an Avian in an officer's uniform who appeared to be the one in charge. The Avian looked first at the guards, then one by one at each of the cadets. He nodded, and the guards made themselves scarce.

"I see you're the newest recruits for the Cornerian Republican Squadron," the Avian said. "I'm afraid there's no time for any proper introductions. The situation above is critical, and at this point we're basically shoving out pilots as soon as they get in. I'll give you each a designation number, and after you find the Arwing with that number, fly through the runway tunnel and go from there. Just remember: our defenses _must hold._ Got it? All right. Good luck!"

Tom nodded and took his number, and from that point the cadets were separated. After much shoving and tripping over wires and scattered tools, he came across an Arwing with a number matching his own. He frowned; it was a slightly older model than the one he was used to. He realized with great alarm that, because Corneria was isolated, they had to resort to older, backup equipment. He climbed the ladder into the cockpit with a shudder, strapped himself in, and lifted off, gently feeding power to the repulsorlifts. Once turned so he was facing the runway tunnel, he shifted power to the sublight engines. His Arwing roared down the tunnel, surrounded by lights blending into a single, shape-shifting white tunnel, until he saw a pinpoint of light in the distance. The pinpoint grew larger surprisingly fast, and before he knew it, the tunnel of lights was gone and his Arwing was swiftly climbing in free Corneria air.

Tom saw from his radar that Alyssa and Tiger's Arwings were right behind him. He switched on the comm. link and said, "All aircraft report!"

"Please, Tom," Alyssa said, speaking with that tone of voice that showed that she was rolling her eyes. "You don't have to do that."

"Sure I do. I'm the oldest in this circus troupe, and as you can tell, there's not much leadership going on around here."

"Well, whatever. We're all here, and we're all fine. Unless those mechanics forgot to put the laser-cannons back on when they were done working on these things."

"Hey guys, where are we?" Tiger piped up. "I don't see Corneria City anywhere!" Outside, there were rolling hills and winding streams; no buildings in sight.

"That underground docking bay was built quite a ways from the city for security reasons," Tom explained. "Hang on, we're coming up on the city."

As if on cue, three bombers dropped out of the sky and roared ahead of the Arwings, in the same direction. Tom locked on the center one and released a charged blast, destroying all three. When the hill in front of them passed, Tom could see that the bombers had been only twenty or thirty yards from the first building of the city, their target.

"Oh my God," Alyssa whispered.

Corneria City was in ruins. Buildings everywhere were covered with gouges from concussion bombs, and more than a few had collapsed, marked by streams of heavy smoke. Bombers swarmed over the city, dropping bombs relentlessly, which hit their targets with a brief and lethal flash. Other Arwings were already engaged in battle, struggling to end the destruction that had already begun.

"Ah, reinforcements!" the comm. link crackled. "Hey, newbies, pick your targets and go!"

"We're not newbies!" Tiger cried. "We've been in more battles than m…"

"We're 'Fresh Fox,'" Tom said. In the Arwing to his right, Alyssa laughed.

A bomber flew across Tom's field of vision, and like the predator that he was, he turned sharply and gave chase to the bogey. It dropped a bomb, which exploded with a flash. Tom looked down below, and whistled when he saw the destruction the bomb did to Fox's penthouse below.

"My dad would kill you," Tom muttered with a grin, setting his sights center on the bomber, "in the worst possible way. Fortunately for you, I'm making it quick and painless." Tom fired; at the last minute, the bomber rolled, and the hyper beams only grazed it. The bomber tumbled to the ground, trailing intermittent puffs of black smoke.

Tom pulled back on the control stick, bringing the sky back into view, and saw a pack of bombers heading straight for him. He squeezed off a series of bolts, leaving nothing but fading smoke in their wake. Once again, he found himself joyfully decimating the enemy, composed entirely of ships that were far less maneuverable than his own, and far less capable in a dogfight.

And, once again, the enemy began to retreat. A few hastily finished their circle for a final run, then collected into one spiraling path that led up into the sky.

"Hunt 'em down!" someone said on the intercom. "They'll be back with reinforcements!"

"It's no use, there are too many of them," Tom said. "We'll need to get repairs and supplies anyway, and chasing them down will do no good."

The comm. link crackled again. "He's right, squadron." Tom could tell by the voice that it was the Avian back at base. "Sensors indicate that there's a blockade in orbit around Corneria. It's not a big one, but it's enough to push back a small group of Arwings chasing after some fighters. Return to base, squadron. We'll get you resupplied in no time. We have a feeling they'll be back pretty soon."

The Arwings switched out of all-range mode and formed "V" formations. Tom, Alyssa and Tiger formed their own at the back of the squadron.

"How was that for a warm-up?" Tiger said gloomily.

"For a warm-up, pretty tough," Alyssa replied.

"Don't worry, all we have to do is keep them at bay." Tom looked at the ruined city below. "Unfortunately, the city may not be able to handle that alone."

"Attention, squadron!" the Avian said again, allowing alarm to slip into his voice. "Incoming enemy fighters! The reinforcements are here! Return to Corneria City and stop the enemy!"

"Great," Tiger said, turning his fighter around in a wide arc. "We don't even get to stretch our legs for a minute."

"Don't worry," Tom said, turning around in a much fancier fashion, by doing a 360-degree loop. "They're just bombers, so we ought to be able to… oh, crap."

As they neared the city, they could already see fresh fighters descending onto the city. But there was more than bombers in the sky above Corneria City. There were also interceptors, and lots of them.

"Looks like you'll have to be off your feet for a while longer, Tiger," Tom breathed, and he accelerated into the city, hyper beams charged.

III

When Falco's ship touched down on the landing platform, it did so with some difficulty. At first, he landed too quickly, and the ship bounced up. He tried again, and this time the right wing struck the ground, and the entire ship was thrown to the left as it landed completely. He was still not completely used to the ship's controls and modified parts.

Falco switched off the console and unbuckled himself from the seat, eyeing the building at the end of the narrow walkway from the landing platform. It was the largest building on the small satellite above Fortuna, which, because it was a civilian satellite, the Karzen forces had spared for the most part. It was a cantina, one of the many unofficial hives of the Lylat underground, and a place generally seething with bounty hunters, assassins, and mercenaries. Just the kind of downright scum Falco needed to find.

He jumped out of the cockpit to the ground, an action that took longer than it usually would. Partially because of the satellite's small size, but mostly for entertainment reasons, the artificial gravity was weak. Falco guessed that he could jump four times as high as he normally would. He walked down the pathway to the entrance to the cantina, which was guarded by two Karzen soldiers. He could hear muffled music and loud talk from behind the door.

"What business do you have here?" one of the soldiers said, pointing his rifle at Falco.

"I just want to have a drink," Falco said, holding his arms up.

"You understand that coming here to hire mercenaries, bounty hunters or the like is prohibited by the Empire of Karzen and is punishable by imprisonment up to fifty years, or even death?"

_Look at these guys,_ Falco thought to himself. _Haven't even been in Lylat for a week, and they're already acting like they own the place._ "Of course I do," he said.

The soldier nodded and withdrew his weapon. "Very well, then. You may proceed."

Falco pushed the doors open, and immediately, the music's volume increased tenfold. He was immersed in thick cigarette smoke illuminated by swirling dance lights. In one corner, a band played sleazy music, while drunken creatures of various species danced wildly, taking advantage of the low gravity as they did flips and jumps and midair kisses. In the center of the cantina, a bartender sold drinks, from cheap beer to exotic blends from across the galaxy, to customers for outrageous prices. All around the cantina were tables, and, judging from the people sitting at those tables and the cautious conversations going on, Falco knew that, even with the strict military guards, nothing had changed in the Lylat underground. Nothing at all.

He strolled over to the bar and ordered a beer, casually looking around the cantina for faces that appeared useful. His eyes fell on a particular creature sitting in the back that appeared completely out of place, but was a surprisingly cunning warrior nevertheless. When the bartender slid him his beer, Falco slapped a coin on the countertop and walked to the creature's table. She recognized him immediately.

"Well, well, well," she said, smiling like a Cheshire cat. "Falco Lombardi. So! You've finally come crawling back."

Falco set his beer down and sat across from her. "I'm glad to see you too, Katt," he said, rubbing his eyes.

Katt Monroe had changed quite a bit since the last time he saw her. She wore dark leather clothing, which contrasted greatly with her bright pink fur. On her belt were knives, grenades and a blaster, as if she was ready for battle at any time. She had piercings on her face, and the fur on the top of her head was spiked. She leaned back and placed her feet on the table. Falco noticed a knife tucked into the back of her right boot.

"You come to recruit me for your team, or did you just want to see me?" Katt said. Her eyes twinkled.

Falco took a long draught from his beer, set it down, and burped. "Not exactly," he said. "As you could probably tell from those drones outside, the Lylat system is in great danger. These invaders have spread their influence to every planet but Corneria, and if Corneria doesn't get aid, it's all over. They need us to recruit some mercenaries as a sort of second string."

"So, you want _me_ to help _you_ help _Corneria_," Katt said, leaning in close.

Falco looked down at the table. "Please."

Katt laughed. "Falco, Falco, Falco. Always needing me to do you favors! My, you haven't changed a bit."

"This isn't just for me," Falco growled, narrowing his eyes. "You don't want to live under a dictatorship, do you?"

Katt shrugged. "I haven't noticed any differences so far. As long as I can still kill people for money, I'm essentially above the law, no matter who that law is coming from."

"If it helps, you will get paid for this."

"Oh, Falco, you know this isn't about the money." Katt's eyes fluttered at him. "And anyway, you still owe me a favor. Remember Zoness? Macbeth? Sector Z? You wouldn't have made it in any of those battles if it weren't for me, Katt!"

"Oh, quit flattering yourself," Falco spat. "You didn't provide any essential help. We would've done just fine without you. If anything, you just got in the way."

"Say what you will," Katt said, "but you still owe me."

Falco sighed, banged his head against the table. "All right, all right," he mumbled. "What do I have to do to get you to sign up?"

"Well…" Katt grinned again. "You can start by getting me a drink."

"Fine," Falco said, standing up. He reached into his pocket and turned toward the bar, but Katt placed a hand on his arm.

"Uh, uh, uh," she said with a smile. "No beer. I can urinate stuff that tastes better than this place's beer. Get me a Fortuna Tropical Daiquiris."

Falco opened his mouth to protest, but wisely closed it again. He went over to the bar and forwarded her request. The bartender looked at him funny, then proceeded to making the concoction.

While he waited for the drink to be made, Falco looked around the cantina, hoping to find another mercenary to hire while he was there. He stopped searching when he saw a muscular pig sitting across the cantina, glaring at him. After a moment, Falco realized that the pig wasn't looking at him, but at _Katt,_ and was secretly priming a blaster under the table.

The pig stood up and strode swiftly across to Katt's table, brushing past Falco. Falco looked at Katt, hoping to see her ready for the attack, but she was staring at the dancers and laughing.

"Take my bounty, will ya?" the pig muttered with a snarl, raising the blaster to Katt's head. "Then here are your just desserts, Miss Monroe!"

The bartender slid Falco the drink and demanded his money. Instead, Falco grabbed the glass and hurled it at the pig's back. Stunned by the glass smashing on his jacket and the juices splattering his body, the pig stumbled forward, his blaster hand wavering. Falco raised his own weapon, fired, and watched as the alcoholic drink on the pig's jacket burst into flames. The pig fell to the ground, a flaming mass of deadened flesh.

Katt looked first at the pig, then at Falco, then back at the pig. Falco holstered his weapon and leaned on Katt's table. Now it was his turn to smile like a Cheshire cat.

"So," he said. "How's _that_ for returning a favor?"

IV

"Mayday! Mayday! I'm going down! I'm going…" The intercom went silent.

Tom flinched. It wasn't the first time someone had issued a distress call over the intercom while tumbling to the ground in flames. Still, he kept his guard up and continued shooting, even though he was tired and worried about their chances.

"Pack of interceptors at nine o'clock," Alyssa cried. "Coming in fast!"

"They must've wiped out Oikanopolis," someone said unhappily. Oikanopolis was a small city to the west of Corneria City.

"They're everywhere!"

"I've got someone on my tail!" someone else cried.

"I've got your back!" Tiger said. Tom saw Tiger's Arwing abandon its prey and give chase to the three interceptors chasing someone else's Arwing.

Tom's Arwing rocked violently. He shook his head, looked at his radar, but was rocked by another hit. He switched on his comm. link and said, "Bogey on my six!" He waited, but no one came to help. There were too many enemies, and too few Arwings.

Tom tried barrel rolling and doing flips, but the interceptor was still hot on his tail. He realized that these weren't robotic aircraft, but craft manned by highly skilled pilots. Another hit scorched his right wing. Without any other options, Tom dove straight into the city below. He did a barrel roll and came up level again once he was below twenty stories of skyscrapers, and leveled out. Walkways, falling rubble, metal struts sticking out, and civilian hover cars speeding through the city in panic littered the flyways, and Tom had to duck and weave between these things that came at him from every which way. The enemy remained on his tail. He did a quick, sharp turn into a narrow street. In the process, he slammed into the building on the opposite side, and lost his right wing because of it. But, he noticed thankfully, the enemy fighter wasn't so lucky, and smashed into the building with all of its velocity and exploded brilliantly.

"Tom! Are you all right?" Alyssa's voice crackled on Tom's comm. link.

"Yeah," he said. "My starboard wing is damaged, but I'm… aargh!"

A bomber had dropped a bomb onto a building near him, and Tom's Arwing was pummeled with glass, steel, concrete, and, worst of all, shockwaves from the explosion. His ship tumbled and reeled, his head slamming into the canopy in every side. When Tom tried to level out his craft, he realized that he couldn't, that his Arwing was no longer air worthy.

"Tom? Are you…"

"Mayday! Mayday! I'm going down! Repeat, I'm going down!"

"Tom! What happened? Tom!"

But Tom couldn't listen to Alyssa's voice anymore. He had to think fast. Buildings surrounded him on all sides, and fire was everywhere; there was no safe place to land. He scanned the console before him, his mind racing to come up with an idea, and stopped when his eyes fell on the large red button on his console. Suddenly, memories from his days at the Air Force Academy of Katina rushed back to him, and he could hear the voices of his instructors, telling him the proper conditions for the eject function to not kill you in the process. The proper altitude, the proper damage levels, the precise moment, the correct angle of the canopy… Tom was sure that the current scenario violated all of those conditions.

"Now's not the time for rational thinking," he muttered. "Now's the time to go with what you've got and hope for the best."

He slammed his fist into the red button, and instantly felt like a living missile. Before he realized what had happened, he saw his Arwing hundreds of feet below, a mangled mess of fire and metal. He was high above the buildings, and worried for a moment that someone might accidentally hit him in the dogfighting above, but his body started to fall. He was picking up speed, but before any serious concerns about falling into the ground, his parachute opened up. His velocity had been cut, but not by a lot.

He fell below the top of the buildings, where hazards of many kinds awaited him. He saw with terror that he was headed straight for a bridge, and at that speed, his legs would be turned into jelly, if they weren't torn off altogether. When the bridge came close, he lifted his legs until his knees were touching his ears. The bridge passed without incident, but Tom was nearing another danger; an intersection. As soon as he passed into the intersection, his parachute was caught in the wind, and he was sent in the direction of a burning building, a threat that could not be averted. He grabbed the blaster from his side and blasted the window he was headed for, smashing the glass in. He tucked his body into a ball and passed into the window, but saw with a burst of adrenaline that the room he had entered was being consumed by an inferno. Before he could fly into the fire, his parachute caught on the window. Tom fell to the floor, tore off the parachute, and stood up.

He could see the door on the other end of the room, but knew that he could not reach it unscathed. His eyes moved on, fell on a door to his left. His body went into action, kicking down the door and rushing in.

This new room wasn't nearly as consumed by flames as the last one was, but the ceiling was gone, and through a mess of struts and cables and cracked concrete leading up through at least three floors, he could see the sky, where for a moment he thought he could see a new kind of ship engaged in the battle, a much larger ship, but the building rocked with another explosion, and Tom had to move on.

Tom burst through the only door in the room into the hallway and was startled as he was suddenly immersed in opaque smoke. He turned to reenter the previous room, but the ceiling had completely caved in there, and what space wasn't occupied by charred debris was rapidly filling with smoke. He continued down the hallway, feeling the walls and doors along the way, but they all felt warm to the touch. His eyes he kept looking straight ahead, although they were swollen and filling with tears. Bu the gesture proved useful when a red glow emerged from the uniform gray. The way was impassable. Tom turned around and went down the hallway in the opposite direction.

Tom tried to not breath more than was necessary to preserve consciousness, but with every breath of smoke he drew in, his condition grew worse. He coughed like mad, and he was getting dizzy. Stricken with a sudden case of terror, he ran, holding one hand over his mouth and the other out in front. His mind was swimming, his lungs were burning, and his legs were starting to fail. Tom knew he was moments away from tripping and falling; and he knew that once he fell, he wouldn't be able to get up.

Then, a miracle happened. A door marked with the word "Exit" appeared out of the nothingness. Tom's outstretched hand threw the door open, and he leapt into the free air.

He fell hard, but the gasp of air he took in after falling felt better than anything else he had ever imagines. Looking up, he saw that he was on a walkway, connecting the burning building to a mostly intact one across the street. Tom stood up, still dizzy and still coughing, and walked a couple of paces before looking back. The open door behind him, along with half a dozen open windows on that side of the building, issued forth an endless stream of dark smoke. Tom could hardly believe he had been there. He soon realized that, should the building collapse, it would take the walkway down with it. He turned and continued running.

Halfway across the walkway, he noticed a familiar ship roar past overhead. Before he could trace its familiarity back to a particular scene in his memory, the ship landed on the only intact docking platform on a tall, half-demolished, and very familiar building: the Cornerian Army Headquarters. When the armed soldiers began to rush out of the ship's open hatch, the memories struck him full in the face in their entire horrific splendor.

They were the soldiers who had pursued him and his father through the woods near the Air Force Academy. They were the relentless soldiers Alyssa had shot at in the fiery skies of Katina.

They were Captain Krumptin's Blitz Forces.

V

Captain Conan Krumptin primed his blaster rifle and looked up at the sky. Tiny ships, their metallic surfaces briefly glinting bright sunlight into his eyes, darted about madly, shooting unseen energy bolts at each other. Ships exploded in midair, while others fell to the distant ground below in a fiery display of smoke and shredded metal. In the midst of this battle, stubborn bombers continued dropping bombs on the devastated city.

Conan Krumptin watched all this, but he watched it with unseeing eyes. What he saw was what any other observer would see as a tragically intense battle that, if anything, heralded the coming of an even greater battle, with even greater casualties. What Conan Krumptin saw was a variable outside of the equation. His eyes, from the moment they left the detachment vehicle to the moment they fell upon the deceased target, could only see and interpret objects that meant something to his mission. He was world-famous, nay, galaxy-famous, for not only his skill and cunning, but for his unsurpassed effectiveness. When Dictator Vladimir Nerome sent him on a mission, Conan Krumptin would see to it that the mission would be fulfilled to the letter. His eyes, his unseeing and all seeing eyes, were key to this effectiveness. When his eyes began seeing things in terms of variables and equations, it meant that he was in execution mode. Until his team fulfilled its mission, there was no going out.

He turned to his galaxy-famous Blitz Forces. All had armed their weapons and were ready to fight. They watched him with grim eagerness. Conan Krumptin watched them, and saw assets to completing the mission.

"You have your orders," Captain Krumptin said monotonously.

The Blitz Forces stood to attention in response.

"Now, for execution." Captain Krumptin turned, saw a door, and focused on it as the next segment of his mission.

He ran, rifle in hand, towards the door. His men followed. He didn't bother trying the handle; that would take time, an essential variable to the equation, and he couldn't spare it. He kicked the door with all his weight, and the door came crashing down. He stepped in, glancing around, looking at every object through the sights of his rifle. He saw a staircase, and that instantly became a crucial segment of his mission. The target would be at the bottom of the stairs. He began his descent.

A blaster shot sounded from behind. The staircase instantly became unimportant as Captain Krumptin saw a figure, blaster in hand, standing at the top of the staircase. It had killed one of his men with a laser blast to the head. The figure instantly became an obstacle to Captain Krumptin's goal, and, yelling an order, he raised his rifle and fired. The figure dodged the blast, ducking out of sight.

"Shall we pursue him?" one of the men said.

"No," came Captain Krumptin's response, mostly to himself than to anyone else. "Our mission must be fulfilled as soon as possible. Continue down, but watch your back. If anyone appears behind you, anyone at all, kill them."

The men rushed down the stairs, the ones in the back looking over their shoulders occasionally. After many minutes, they reached the bottom of the staircase, which was marked with a warning sign and ended by a metal detector. Captain Krumptin's eyes took all these in as irrelevant variables. Very different was the case with the guard standing in front of the metal detector. Captain Krumptin put a hole between the guard's eyes and moved on.

They navigated the hallways in the basement, ignoring the signs prohibiting access to civilians and unauthorized personnel. The ceiling was heavily cracked, and the basement was mostly vacant, but aside from that, one couldn't tell what was going on at the surface. Captain Krumptin didn't care either way. The ceiling, unless it collapsed, was an irrelevant variable. The occasional guard, standing loyally at his post, was a minor variable and was easily eliminated from the equation. Captain Krumptin moved on, and his eyes kept scanning.

His eyes finally caught the heavily sealed, heavily guarded metal door that indicated the all-important Corneria War Room. Captain Krumptin and his Blitz Forces swiftly eliminated the guards, came to a stop by the door, and proceeded to executing the second-to-last segment of their mission.

Captain Krumptin stood back as his men busied themselves setting up the series of bombs around the edges of the metal door. He gave one look over his shoulder to see if the figure had followed them down. It was one, uninterested look, filled with irrelevant variables. He looked back and continued watching his men, his assets, at work.

It was one look that proved fatal.

VI

Tom pressed his body against the wall, breathing heavily and holding his blaster close to his face. He knew from experience to be wary of the soldiers running down the stairs of the Cornerian Army Headquarters, but their ability still shocked him. When he appeared in the stairwell, none of the soldiers were looking behind them, so Tom had time to aim. He fired once, not daring to look if he had hit his target, and leapt out of the line of fire. Not a moment later, a red bolt of energy swept past him and left a black scorch mark on the wall behind him. If he had still been standing there, the shot would have caught him in the forehead.

After he had seen the ship touch down, Tom navigated walkways, crumbling buildings, and mangled docking platforms to get to the Cornerian Army Headquarters. He proceeded with caution, in case any one of the soldiers had stayed behind. Thankfully, none had. Even more thankfully, none had pursued him up the staircase after he had fired that one shot.

When the echoing sounds of their footsteps at last faded away, Tom crept slowly out from behind his hiding place. When he saw the next set of stairs, he felt a tinge of personal pride. One soldier lay dead halfway down. Tom crouched down, examining the body, and saw that he had hid the soldier in the shoulder, just below the collarbone, and that the soldier's fall had caused a hemorrhage in the head that led to his death. Tom's pride faded away.

He patted the body down, in search of anything that may prove useful. He found five. He found two smoke grenades, one fragmentary grenade, and a tripwire attached to the soldier's belt. At the soldier's side was holstered a blaster pistol. Tom took it in his left hand, weighed it against his own, and decided that he could wield both at the same time. As for the bombs, he knew he could find some use for them. A blaster report echoed up the stairwell. Tom froze for a moment, listened for approaching footsteps, then exhaled. He stood up and jogged lightly down the stairs.

When he reached the basement, he knew that the soldiers were down there. Already, he saw one dead guard by the metal detector. There was a scorch mark between his eyes. Tom shuddered and walked on, moving with more caution than ever. He slowly navigated the corridors, turning sharply and pointing both blasters at every corner. He turned one final corner, moments after Captain Krumptin had looked behind him, and saw the soldiers, working on something at the door to the War Room.

Tom retreated behind the corner and pressed his body against the wall. He breathed deeply, slowly, and quietly. He closed his eyes. _I can do this, _he told himself.

With his blaster in one hand and a smoke grenade in another, he leapt out from behind the corner, threw the grenade, and fired at the one soldier standing. He hit the soldier in the small of his back, and the soldier reeled. Tom fired again, sending the soldier to his knees, and ducked behind the corner, just as a hail of laser blasts cut through the air and the smoke grenade set off. He heard the soldiers cough and cry out in surprise. He took the second grenade and threw it against the far wall; it bounced, skidded across the floor, and set itself off halfway down the hall from the first one.

By now, the area near Tom was getting hazy, and the soldiers were surely in complete darkness. Tom recalled with sudden vengeful feelings how, only minutes before, he had been in a similar smoke-induced darkness himself. He picked up both blasters with a snarl, stepped out from behind the corner, and fired rapidly. He strafed from one side of the corridor to the other, avoiding any blind shots the soldiers might take and creating the illusion of multiple attackers.

The ploy worked. Tom heard the soldiers cry out confused and angered outbursts.

"Where are they? I can't see them!"

"Captain Krumptin's fading! There's not much time!"

"I'll tell you not much time! That bomb's going to go off at any moment!"

"What? Screw those guys! Let's rush them!"

Tom stopped shooting and returned to his hiding place behind the corner. He grabbed the frag grenade, pulled the pin, and threw it into the smoky chaos. The explosion was followed by more outbursts of surprise and anger, but not many cries of pain, as Tom expected. He ran a few paces, set the tripwire, fastened it to a wall, and dashed away.

The soldiers emerged from the smoke, coughing and squeezing the smoke out of their eyes. When they opened their eyes, they saw Tom running like mad down the hallway. They raised their rifles to aim for his head, but suddenly dropped them and stopped running. There was a monotonous beep coming from the wall by their feet. They looked with the eyes of men who have failed their missions, and saw what Captain Krumptin would have seen as a critical variable in an equation.

And to Captain Krumptin's Blitz Forces, it was an equation that would never be solved.

VII

Somewhere in orbit above Corneria, beyond the ruined Cornerian Orbit Defense system, several frigates floated harmlessly, awaiting the reports of the forces below to send in reinforcements. They were to do this continually until Admiral Moss and the rest of the fleet arrived to finish off the weakened planet.

But something happened quite suddenly that they did not expect. Several Cornerian naval frigates had arrived from a successful orbital battle on the other side of the planet. The Karzenian frigates were unequipped to fight, but finding it the only way to preserve their orders, they did so anyway. The battle was a short one, and in the end, the naval frigates left a cloud of wreckage to float harmlessly in orbit above Corneria.

Moments later, the Cornerian naval frigates appeared in the sky above Corneria City, where things were not looking good for the Cornerian Arwings. The mere presence of the frigates made the Karzenian ships feel intimidated and the Arwings feel a boost of ability. Many bombers were destroyed by the frigates' powerful turrets, and the interceptors, suffering a sudden and sharp drop in morale, were picked off by the supercharged Arwings.

When the threat was eliminated, the Arwings collected into formation to return to the underground base, and the frigates moved on to help out the next major city.

Both parties felt a burst of cheerfulness, although both were deeply and somberly aware that it was only temporary. Another battle, one more catastrophic and decisive than the ones taking place all over Corneria, was coming, and they could do nothing but wait.

VIII

"Enemy forces in orbit above Corneria have been eliminated, and the fighters above Corneria City have retreated. Remaining defensive forces are being recalled for supplies and repairs."

The report hit Pepper's ears as music. He clapped his hands and laughed. But Fox, he noted, was not so positively affected by the news. Fox was hunched over the round table, grimacing. The console at the foot of the table was looping the video segment of the pilot prisoner in the enemy's ship, Captain Trenton, reading Karzen's terms in a shaky voice and shifting his weight from foot to foot.

"That's not it," Fox mumbled, squeezing his eyes shut. "That's not the end. It's only a respite. That's the way they play. Hit suddenly, go away, return, and hit hard."

Pepper placed a hand on Fox's back. "Fox, old buddy, you've got to take it easy," he said. "We've won a _small_ victory, yes, but it's a victory nonetheless. When we recover from this, we'll prepare ourselves for another strike. We just have to take this one bit at a…"

An explosion rocked the War Room. Pepper turned just in time to see the metal door, the supposedly bulletproof and shockproof door, explode outward in ribbons, sending an orderly flying. People all over the War Room ducked and cried out as bits of hot metal whizzed through the air, smashing consoles and making dents in the metal walls. Fox leapt over an overturned table, raised his blaster, and, seeing that the area outside the door was enveloped in thick smoke and that he couldn't see his assailants, gripped the blaster tightly.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" The voice was coming from somewhere in the smoke. Fox relaxed his blaster hand. "It's me, Thomas McCloud! I'm alone! Don't shoot!"

Tom emerged from the curtain of smoke. His fur was singed, and his eyes were bloodshot, but otherwise, he appeared all right. In either hand he held a smoldering pistol.

The people in the War Room gradually emerged from their hiding places. Pepper stood up, grinning. "Tom! Tom McCloud! It's wonderful to see you!"

Tom raced to General Pepper happily, but stopped when he saw his father. Fox had dropped his blaster; his hands were shaking, his eyes twitching. His lips began to curl back, and for a moment it looked like he was going to snarl, but he instead burst out in tears, tears not shed for sorrow or fright, but shed as the only output his frazzled brain could think of for the confused emotions inside of him. Fox grabbed the fur on top of his head with a vice-like grip and began babbling incoherently. He walked circles with a forced limp, shaking his head, babbling, cackling, crying.

Pepper approached him cautiously. He spoke, slowly and calmly: "Fox…"

"I can't… I can't take it… I just…"

"Fox, look at me. You need to calm down."

"I can't take it anymore… the sights, the sounds… it's all too lovely…"

"Fox… listen to me. Listen to my voice."

"Slippy, shut down that robot, he's driving me crazy… oh, so very crazy…"

"Fox. _Listen to my voice._"

"All aircraft report. No, not you, Bill, you're not here… you're off with Uncle Andross, on one of his adventures…"

"Fox…"

"Why, Peppy, you're dead at your desk! Ain't that quaint!"

"_Fox!_"

Pepper grabbed Fox by the lapel with his left hand, drew him close, brought his right back behind his head, and threw it forward for a blow to the nose. Fox stumbled backward into the console, hit his head on a monitor, collapsed on a wheeled chair, sent that rolling, and fell to the floor with a grunt. Pepper stood over him, silently. The entire War Room was silent. Crackling static from monitors getting lost signals could be heard in the background.

After a minute lying on the ground, Fox stood up, holding up one hand, the hand with no thumb, to stop the blood dripping from his nose. His eyes were still moist with tears, but there was reason in them once again.

"Are you all right, Fox?" Pepper said, calmly yet sternly.

Fox didn't answer. With his free hand, he tore off the admiral insignia on his chest and turned away, leaning on the table.

"I can't do this," he muttered between sobs. "I can't handle this task anymore. I don't deserve a sympathy rank. Give the job to someone who's still got his mind. Mine's going the way of Peppy's: to the Old Officer's Heaven in the sky, where sanity is only optional."

"Fox." Pepper placed a hand on Fox's back. He felt Fox's body convulse in violent sobs. "You can do this. I know you can, because I know _you._ I've known you since you were the brash, young, skillful pilot who came into Corneria, guns blazing, an excellent replacement for his father. Even through tough times, through thick and thin, you maintained that excellence. You maintained confidence and skillfulness, yes, but you grew _determination_. With every battle, you learned leadership skills your Star Fox team needed, and which Corneria never had."

"Sir," a technician timidly interrupted. "Sir, there's something on the radar…"

"You know why Star Fox isn't what they used to be?" Pepper continued. "You know _why_ they lost the spotlight? Because they lost _you_. _You_ were their leader, _you_ were their inspiration, _you_ were the sparkle of hope that held them together when times were tough. _You_ were _Star Fox._"

"Sir, ships are coming out of hyperspace outside of Corneria's orbit. Capital ships, frigates… it looks like an entire navy armada, sir."

"Now, Corneria has the opportunity, the _privilege, _to have you as their leader. The leader, the inspiration, the sparkle of hope that were the life forces of Star Fox, Corneria now may benefit from that in this time of need. They need your leadership, Fox. They need _you_ to lead them in this battle."

Fox squeezed tears out of his eyes. They fell onto the table with unheard splashes. He raised his eyes to the console before him, where the video of Captain Trenton aboard Admiral Moss's flagship was playing yet again. Fox squinted at the image, and then wiped his eyes dry.

"Summon the navy from all over the planet," he said. His voice was clear and confident. "Assemble a line of defense and send it to meet them. And get what's left of the air force out there, too."

"Yes, sir!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Yes, sir!"

The War Room was suddenly alive again, with cheerful officers running to execute various tasks. A few even clapped their hands as they went at it. By the door, Thomas McCloud was grinning.

"I knew you would come around," Pepper said with a smile. "I just knew…"

Fox held up a finger. "Look at that video," he said. "Notice something?"

Pepper looked. It was the trembling pilot, shifting his weight from foot to foot as always. He shook his head.

"See that in the corner?" Fox said, pointing. "On the wall behind him?"

Pepper shrugged. "It's the ship's insignia," he said.

"Right. If we knew which ship was the flagship, we could target it, and possibly send the armada into disarray upon its destruction, giving us a great advantage."

"Yes, but we can't make out all of it. Without the entire insignia, we can't…"

"Keep watching."

Pepper watched. Captain Trenton continued shifting his weight. Soon, he was almost out of the picture. The cameraman moved the camera to get the pilot back into the center, bringing the insignia in its entirety into view.

"Hot damn!" Pepper shouted, clapping his hands. "That's one hell of a smart pilot!"

"Passive resistance," Fox said proudly. "A trademark of the brilliant."

Pepper laughed and clapped a hand on Fox's shoulder. "Fox, my boy, it's good to have you back." He turned to send the description of the insignia to the navy, but Fox stopped him.

"You haven't seen _all_ of Fox McCloud," he said, grinning. "Not yet. Listen to this." Fox whispered his plan into Pepper's ear.

"Well," Pepper said, blinking into space. "That's an odd, and possibly insane plan. But if it works, it'll be worth the shot. Now come on, let's get this show on the road!"


	9. The Final Battle

I

In the underground docking bay, mechanics worked madly to finish up repairs on various ships, while the pilots found themselves barely able to stand up, exhausted from defending the city for so long and wishing they could rest longer. Alas, they could not. Almost as soon as their feet touched the concrete floor of the docking bay, orders came again for them to man their ships and assemble in orbit above Corneria. The only reason they were not already in the air again was because of the busy mechanics.

Alyssa and Tiger leaned wearily against a stack of crates, while Bobo, his left leg-stump now securely fastened to a bionic leg, talked with them about the apparent death of Tom. They were in the middle of recalling his very brave, heroic, adventurous, and, most of all, loyal life, when Tiger glanced to the back of the docking bay and saw the spitting image of the one whose life they were now mourning.

"Tom!" Alyssa cried, standing up with new strength. "But we saw you… you were… your radio…"

Tom held his arms out wide and grinned. "What can I say? I'm full of surprises!" He went up to the group of friends for a hug from Alyssa, a high five from Bobo, and a noogie from Tiger.

"Hey, Bobo!" Tom said, standing back. "You've finally got your leg on!"

"Yeah, isn't it great?"

Bobo kicked outward with his robotic leg, half-covered with his pants. The leg kicked with more force than he anticipated, and he fell backwards, knocking down a robot in the process, which whined and blipped in alarm. Everyone laughed as Tom helped Bobo to his feet. "I'm, um, still getting used to it," Bobo said, blushing.

"Well, are you going to be going up there with these guys?" Tom inquired, jerking a thumb behind his head.

"Yeah!" Bobo said excitedly. "You think I'd stay down _here?_ I've spent enough time in the infirmary as it is. It's high time for me to hop into an Arwing and kick some Karzen a… uh, tail!"

"Just hope you don't accidentally kick a hole in your Arwing with that leg," Tiger remarked.

Bobo jerked his left leg up, as if about to give Tiger a kick in the groin. Tiger recoiled in mock terror. Alyssa and Tom watched them, laughing. When it had died down, Alyssa turned and looked at Tom.

"So, Tom, you haven't told us about yourself just yet. Are _you_ coming up there with us?" she asked. She looked at Tom with the suspicion and urgency of an interrogator, one who would just as easily break your fingers as let you go.

"Nope," Tom replied. "I'm going to stay home in my rocking chair, listening to classical music and knitting a quilt while keeping a special place for you in my mind. Hell _yeah,_ I'm going! But, seriously, guys, listen." Here, Tom's voice grew quiet and solemn. "We've come this far. We've survived these guys on three separate occasions, and far more than that if you count cases where we were on our feet, the odds stacked against us. If this battle will mean the end of Lylat, then I will at _least_ make sure that I die fighting it. But if it means we drive off this enemy and live to fight another day, then I want to be able to say to future generations that _I fought in that battle._"

Tiger nodded gravely. "I'm with you, Tom," he said, and he placed his hand on top of Tom's outstretched one. "Even if it's to death."

"To death," Alyssa said. She placed her hand on top of Tiger's.

"To death." Bobo's hand fell on the pile. The four now formed a cross in between themselves.

"Right," Tom said. He looked each of his friends in the face, recalling the moments, both in joyous times and in doubt, he had spent with each. He nodded. "Now. Let's make this happen."

The cross, after a moment more of lingering in the air, broke apart. Each went their separate ways, to the Arwings they were assigned to fight in. The overhead intercom beeped, and a voice spoke to those in the docking bay, loudly:

"Attention! Pilots, get to your vehicles as soon as they are properly outfitted. Prepare for launch. Launch will begin at 17:30 S.C.T. Repeat, launch will begin at 17:30 S.C.T." The intercom switched off.

Each cadet was strapped into the seat of the Arwing, engines revved, hyper beams charged, Nova Bombs loaded. At precisely the time announced, each Arwing slowly lifted off, forming a line towards the launch tunnel. When Tom's Arwing reached the gaping mouth of the launch tunnel for the second and last time, he raised his left hand and stuck out his thumb, as if a sign to all the dirty mechanics and mindless robots remaining behind in the docking bay that, be it a death march or not, he would go along with the same defiance and courage he had gone with on every flight in his life, and hit the accelerator.

II

"All units assemble." Pepper paced from one section of the War Room to another, glancing at various holographs and radars, speaking orders into a handheld comm. device. "Air Force units assume Spread formation and aggressive tactics. Naval units bring up the rear. Army units flank from the sides."

The Air Force section of the War Room flashed an ok. "Spread formation assumed, aggressive tactics enabled. Standing by."

"Naval units defending Air Force units from behind. Standing by."

"Army units flanking from the sides. Aggressive tactics enabled. Standing by."

"All units establishing line of defense between Corneria and intruding enemy forces. Standing by and awaiting assignment."

General Pepper looked at the hologram in the center of the room, showing the area above Corneria in question. Compared to the size of the incoming armada, their line of defense looked depressingly small. Pepper took in a deep breath.

"This is it!" he said. He looked up at the radar in the Air Force section of the War Room, and knew that, somewhere in that mess of dots, friends very dear to him were waiting, possibly more anxious and animated with anticipation than he was. "Fox, Tom, Alyssa, Tiger, Bobo: Godspeed."

The enemy armada stopped its approach and began getting into formation.

III

Admiral Reccal Moss had his gaze fixed on the view through the main viewshield. The milky blue planet he saw there was calming, but until he finished his campaign, it was enemy territory. The _Harbinger_ roared on. He watched as Corneria's only moon, an inhabitable sphere of rock, floated silently by. As the moon revealed more of the planet to him, Moss squinted at the blue sphere, and almost laughed. Almost invisible when placed against the bright aura of the planet was a line of ships, waiting for them.

"How convenient!" Moss cried out. "Instead of forcing us to make the trip all the way down to the planet's surface, they've met us halfway!"

"The orders are still in effect, sir?" asked an officer from the bridge.

"Yes," Moss said. "We'll have to destroy this line of defense first. If they have any sense in them, they'll surrender before we completely eradicate them. If not, we'll have to travel to the surface and force a treaty out of their leaders, since Captain Krumptin and his Blitz Forces have apparently failed to do so."

"As you wish, sir."

The line of ships was getting close. Moss was beginning to see that the number of ships was actually larger than he had thought at first, but the Karzenian fleet still more than tripled Corneria's defense fleet. The_ Harbinger _flagship moved onward. Other capital ships began to swarm around it, until the _Harbinger_ was hidden among countless other, identical capital ships. Smaller frigates and individual interceptor fighters moved forward, as the first, yet, as always, unmerciful, attack wave.

"Attack group Alpha in position," a captain's voice came over the intercom. "Preparing to attack."

"Very good," Moss said calmly. "Proceed as…"

"Look out!"

"What?"

"Mayday! Mayday! We are under…"

"Didn't copy, group Alpha, please…"

"Something's hitting us! A group of fighters! Nine O'clock!"

Moss watched with bulging eyes as his beautifully laid out plan began to unwind in front of him. As the group of frigates and fighters were moving in for the kill, a group of unknown and non-identical ships, much larger than their own, rushed at them from behind the passing moon. Moss ran to an intercom device to shout orders at group Alpha, but the attack had come so suddenly and so harshly that Alpha was in complete chaos. Moss slammed his fist into the console and turned away, a look of disgust on his face. Group Alpha, composed of a third of the fleet's finest ships, was now useless.

"Never mind them," Moss said to his second-in-command. "Send the entire fleet in to attack! Crush them before they have a chance!"

No sooner had the words left Moss's mouth than the unknown ships abandoned group Alpha and turned on the fleet. The _Harbinger_ was suddenly being bombarded by pilots many times more skilled than its own, flying modified ships many times more maneuverable, many times more shielded, and with firepower many times more powerful than the standard interceptors and bombers Karzen had sent. Moss stared out the viewscreen at group Alpha, hoping they would come to their aid, but they could not. When the group of mysterious fighters had abandoned group Alpha, the line of ships defending Corneria closed in around group Alpha to finish the job.

IV

Tom watched the arrival of their rescuers from his Arwing in the line of ships above Corneria, his jaw dropped. Where in the universe…

"Yeehaw!" The voice that came over the comm. link was familiar. It was the voice of Bill Grey. "They didn't see that one coming! Hit 'em hard, boys!"

The ships, big and small, new and old, but mostly made of parts from all of the above, danced and swooped around the Karzenian fleet, striking the capital ships and the defensive fighters nearby. Tom grinned when the realization hit him.

"Hey, Corneria!" Another familiar voice. This one was Falco's. "You miss us? Just be glad we came through on our mission! You owe us some mon-ay!"

"Come on, guys! Join the fun!" Slippy.

"Yeah. The more ships these rats shoot down, the more money you'll have to pay them!" Krystal.

By now, every pilot in Corneria's line of defense watching the sudden display understood what was happening. They were now watching the largest union of mercenaries and bounty hunters in Lylat history. This was a group of ships, far more powerful and effective than anything any official military branch could cough up, that future generations would refer to as the Star Fox Armada.

"You heard them, folks," Tom said cheerfully. "Break up, and let 'em have it!"

One by one, the Arwings accelerated into the fray, followed by the sluggish and powerful naval batteries, followed by the inefficient and ever-present army ships. All of Lylat's remaining military took part in the battle.

And Corneria, the peaceful blue sphere below that was destined to always remain so, remained as it was, and watched.

V

"Enemy units everywhere, sir! They're too fast for us!"

Moss paced the main bridge, aggravated by his foe's inability to back down. He swayed every so often with a blow on the ship, but his pent-up anger and determination forced his body to correct its pacing path immediately. To those watching him, it almost looked as if he was running on a magnetic track on the floor.

"Aim for their capital ships, then!" Moss yelled. "We know _they're_ not as good as ours! Hit them from the top and work their way down!"

"Sir…" An explosion rocked the _Harbinger_ heavily. A Nova Bomb had exploded just outside the main bridge. The officer grunted, then continued. "Sir, the Harbinger's shields are dropping, quickly. If they keep it up like this, we very well could face…" The officer was afraid to say it.

"Give orders to defense and interceptor fighters from the other capital ships to come in and protect the _Harbinger_," Moss said.

"Well… sir, they have none. All the fighters not defending the _Harbinger_ are out keeping enemy ships at bay."

Moss frowned. "No defense ships?" he snapped. "Then how are they staying alive?"

"That's just the thing, sir," the officer said quietly. "None of the other capital ships are receiving substantial damage."

Moss thought about it for a moment. Then it dawned on him. "They know we're the flagship," he said softly. Then he roared, "How did they find out? How the _hell_ did they find out?"

No one could answer.

"You have no idea what this means! All my planning… all those victories… they may very well be in jeopardy!" He closed his eyes. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter, more determined. "I can make up for it. I always could. I can save this battle. I just need to think."

Outside, exploding turbolasers and scorching laser blasts told him that he had no time to think.

"Dispatch that Star Wolf team," Moss ordered. "Send them to finish their job. If anything will turn the tide to our favor once again, destroying Corneria's best pilots is it."

VI

Falco watched as the group of mercenaries and bounty hunters rushed in for the kill, turning the organized, synchronized, almost formal armada into a disaster of a team. Interceptors reacted so strongly that they attacked from everywhere in no harmonious manner, and even occasionally shooting each other; bombers, knowing very well that they wouldn't stand a chance against this new group of fighters, fled from the scene; frigates broke away from each other in hopes of drawing enemy fire off their backs.

It was into this disasterous armada that Falco sent his ship. Although he participated in the excited whoops and hollers as much as anyone, he was secretly worried about his new ship's combat capabilities. It had handled well where it counted when he was off looking for recruits, but he hadn't so much as fired a shot on that mission. He was uncertain of his odds, and therefore, stayed back as much as he could.

Falco tapped his headset. "Groups one and three, go for the frigates," he ordered. "Corneria Central Command has just transmitted an image of the flagship's insignia. Transmitting insignia now. Concentrate firepower on that flagship. Groups two, four and five take care of those fighters."

"Lombardi, we're getting some strong shields here," came a mercenary's voice minutes later. "It would be better if those Cornerian frigates try to take 'em on. We'll just waste power trying to bring those shields down."

"Copy that, Redd," Falco replied. "Someone's already working on its shields. Keep them busy until we get the ok."

A group of interceptors suddenly crossed Falco's path. He fired a series of bolts, obliterating all but one of them. The one survivor turned around and started firing angrily on Falco's ship. He muttered a curse.

"Bogey on my tail," he muttered. He realized quickly remembered that his companions were murderous, cutthroat bounty hunters, who would kill their lifelong friends for some cash. They probably wouldn't risk the loss of hundreds of bucks going after a single ship on his tail. Fortunately, he got a few affirmatives from Arwings in the official air force.

After several blows to his ship, Falco decided that he couldn't wait any longer. He pulled back on the stick, surprised at the high responsiveness, and aimed straight for the capital ship _Harbinger,_ making several barrel rolls along the wall. When his acrobatics were complete, he wondered where exactly the Cornerian government had found these ships.

The _Harbinger_ in its intimidating entirety came into view. Falco could see dozens of red bolts streaking from various turbolasers on the ship. One mercenary dove in, dropped a bomb, and swept away. When the bomb exploded, there were three or four fewer turbolasers to worry about. Falco flew straight for the _Harbinger._ As he had hoped, several turbolasers stopped shooting at impossible-to-hit ships that ducked and weaved between shots, and instead aimed for Falco's ship, flying straight toward them, an easy target. When the first of the shots came, Falco did barrel rolls to the sides, letting the bolts of red energy fly past him, hopefully hitting the bogey behind him. The interceptor was far too tight on his tail, though, and Falco found that the _Harbinger's_ turbolasers were hitting him more than they were hitting the interceptor. He realized that the plan had backfired horribly, that it was too late to get out of the enormous capital ship's path, that…

The interceptor on his tail suddenly disappeared from radar, and a pink ship flew in front of him, rapidly doing barrel rolls to fend off the capital ship's deadly laser blasts.

"Well, well, well!" Katt said smugly. "Looks like you owe me another one, Falco! Don't get too reckless. I wont' be able to save you every time!" Katt's ship swept away.

"Thanks, Katt," Falco grumbled. His pursuer gone, he easily flew out of the _Harbinger's_ line of fire and set his sights on Katt's ship, hoping to humble her with a shot or two across her nose.

But before he got the chance, someone beat him to it.

"Hey! Ow!" Katt cried. "Falco, why would you do such a…" Her ship rocked again with more hits. Katt soon realized that it was not Falco who was shooting her.

"We meet again, Falco Lombardi." It was the voice of Katt's attacker, Leon. "What a pity it is that our second meeting in over twenty years is such an unpleasant one. I'd hate to have to kill your girlfriend before we got properly reacquainted."

"Then let me spare you the unpleasantness!" Falco yelled angrily, and he charged up a beam, locked on Leon's Wolfen, and released a seeker missile. Leon broke off Katt's tail in an attempt to lose the missile. It detonated ten feet behind his ship.

"Touché," Leon said, allowing a hint of annoyance slip into his voice. "But you realize this is only the beginning of the battle. I both outnumber and outmatch you. Pray your ship doesn't perform as bad as it looks."

Leon appeared again, this time with two of his fellow Star Wolf members trailing behind him.

"Roast this bird's hide, gentlemen!" Leon ordered.

"With pleasure!" Johnny Caiman said.

"Allow me to start him off!" Dorian Sly cackled.

Falco did his best to keep the Wolfens in his sights, but for naught. Before long, all three were on him, and battering him mercilessly. Falco found that he could not shake them, and resorted instead to losing them in the confusion. His ship was far more maneuverable than he had thought at first, allowing him to wheel and dodge and flip in every direction. But the fact remained that he wasn't in deep space. He was in the middle of a large-scale space battle, and in the midst of reeling spacecraft of every size and endless crossfire, he had to be careful about where he turned to, and every care he took cost him a few shots from his pursuers.

"This is the best money I'll ever make!" Dorian Sly commented, giggling hysterically. "Now, allow me to finish him off!"

"Not so fast!" Slippy cried. "Falco's not alone! He's still got a team: the Star Fox team!"

Falco saw Slippy, coming in full throttle for what almost looked to be a head-on crash. But at the last moment, Slippy pulled up, leaving a Nova Bomb in his wake. The bomb flew past Falco's ship and headed straight for the pack of Wolfens. The Wolfens quickly dispersed, but not before receiving damage. Slippy turned, locked on Dorian Sly's ship, and began firing.

"Hey!" Dorian Sly whined. "What's all this? Leon, help me out here!"

But the other Star Fox members had come in, and Dorian Sly quickly saw that Leon was indisposed. Leon suddenly found himself the target of Krystal McCloud, and Johnny Caiman was being hunted by the last member of the Star Fox team, Alec Falan.

"Back off, Krystal," Falco said sharply. "I want to take care of Leon myself."

Krystal hesitated for a moment. Then, "If you say so, Falco," and she pulled away.

"What's this?" Leon said mockingly. "Falco wishing to show honor in battle by taking me on himself? Not a chance, birdbrain! Your ship is at death's door! You'll never get me!"

"We'll see, Leon!" Falco retorted, and he hit the accelerator, closing in on Leon's dancing Wolfen for a head-to-head confrontation.

VII

In the background of the fierce melee, beyond the whirling bombs, exploding ships and raining lasers, a lone scout ship drifted harmlessly toward the rear-end of the _Harbinger_, where it almost appeared to be a lost convoy approaching a capital ship for help.

But instead of ducking under the _Harbinger's_ mass to get inside the docking bay underneath, this scout ship lowered itself onto the back wall of the ship, where it clamped on with magnetic grips. Once the scout ship had touched down completely, an air lock opened in the side, and a creature, dressed in an airtight space suit, drifted out and grabbed onto the ship's wall, again with a magnetic grip.

The astronaut found the exhaust tunnel it was looking for. After prying away the grate, it climbed through the tunnel, grabbing the seams along the wall to push itself up. It soon reached the airtight exhaust shaft, where a dual set of flaps were constantly at work. One set would allow exhaust into the chamber, close, and then the second would open, allowing the exhaust to be sucked out into space. It was an effective system, but mostly because the flaps snapped shut so quickly and so tightly. It was not designed to be astronaut-friendly; the creature knew that, if it were to get caught when a flap was closing, it would cut in half.

The astronaut waited for a moment to familiarize itself with the pattern of the flaps, and then moved forward. It passed both flaps with little incident, and once inside, it was relieved to feel the presence of gravity and atmosphere again. It moved forward until it was able to break out of the exhaust pipe. When it fell on the floor, it stood up, removed its helmet, and stepped out of its space suit.

Fox McCloud was in. He looked around. The room the exhaust pipe had led him into was clearly the main generator room. Pipes lined the walls and ceiling, crude consoles reading off energy data were spaced evenly along the wall, and huge, blocky machines sat in rows, chugging and whirling to produce the power that kept the _Harbinger_ alive.

He knew the foolishness in sabotaging that place. Not only were his explosives not enough to destroy all of the generator machines, but also, the place was heavily manned. He wouldn't get far without being noticed by some worker. And, even if he managed to destroy the generator, it wouldn't be long, a couple seconds at most, before the auxiliary generator engines kicked in.

Instead, Fox crept slowly along the wall, hiding behind pipes when he could, making his way toward the secondary generator engines. This generator would be smaller, and hopefully requiring of less maintenance. It was the subject of his mission. It was the generator that produced the _Harbinger_'s shields.

Cautiously holding up his blaster, Fox peeked around a corner, into a corridor. He saw the shadow of an approaching creature and quickly withdrew. Moments later, the creature, a huge canine in a blue worker's suit, lumbered out of the corridor, into the engine room, and towards the back. Fox walked quietly into the corridor, found a sign stenciled into the metal wall indicating the direction of the secondary generator. He turned in that direction and walked a short way before the corridor broke away into another generator room. Fox stepped into the room, immersed in light steam and an electric feeling on his skin that lifted the hairs slightly. The generator's noises drowned out his approaching footsteps, but it didn't matter. The generator room was empty. Fox walked forward, toward the center of the rows of engine blocks.

On the catwalks above, someone was laughing.

Fox whirled around, blaster raised in his left hand, glanced from one side of the ceiling to the other. The metal mesh catwalks above appeared to be empty.

"Fox McCloud… never diverting from his old habits, even as an old officer." The voice seemed to be everywhere. Fox did quick, 180-degree turns, as if expecting someone to appear behind him at any moment. The voice above traveled freely from one place to another, seeming to always take the one path Fox could not see at any one moment.

"Your fetish for traveling to the core of things to succeed in battle will be your undoing. Because of this, you will be dead before you leave this room."

Fox sought the source of the voice in vain, while something deep inside him told him that he knew that voice, that he had heard its mocking and lethal tone before. He didn't allow himself to allow that something inside of him to press further into his memories, for if he let his guard down for one moment, he knew he would surely die. He turned again, looking in one corner of the room, where a certain catwalk met a balcony from the second floor of the adjacent control room. For a brief moment, Fox thought that he could see the silhouette of a cat in that corner, but when he blinked, it was gone. He stood motionless for a second, wondering who it was, and his eyes involuntary changed focus from the corner to something much closer. His eyes focused on an engine block, pistons thrusting downward, coolant blades whirling, exhaust ports exhaling white steam. He looked at the steam, and suddenly, a memory flashed itself in his mind.

_A steaming bowl of soup. A hooded, mysterious vendor in pouring rain. The bowl thrown violently to the ground, where it shattered vividly. That mocking and lethal tone of voice…_

Fox ducked. A long, sharp knife, glinting in the light provided by the panels above, whirled above his head. He felt the tip of the blade part the fur on the top of his head as it passed. He tried to swear, but what came out was a choked gasp. He sprang up and dashed out from behind the engine block.

Fox made it from the generator to the door to the control room, but found it locked. He wisely spun around, blaster level, and saw his assassin, at the end of the aisle between the rows of engine blocks and mostly definitely a cat, leap down from the catwalk above and fire a shot through a silencer. Fox ducked his head. The shot hit the door behind him, smashing the windowpane there. Fox fired a return shot, but before the blast reached her, his assassin made a magnificent leap, and was navigating the catwalks again.

Fox decided to run along the wall, where the only way his assassin could see him would be by exposing herself to him. At first, after noticing his tactic, his assassin didn't expose herself. After a while, she apparently decided that her shot against Fox's had good odds. She popped up on the other side of the room, appearing on the far catwalk through a lightning-quick flip, uncurled her body, and fired. Her accuracy was frightening. Even after zeroing in on Fox's position for less than a second, she was able to get a shot that would have gone through Fox's head, had he not ducked and rolled to the side. When Fox clumsily uncurled and stood up, he fired at the assassin, but she had already back-flipped away. It wouldn't have mattered either way, since Fox's shot didn't even hit her side of the room.

Fox tried for another strategy. He broke into a run, zigzagging to avoid several shots that struck at his trailing shadow, and disappeared into the rows of engine blocks. He scrambled like a mad insect, weaving between the blocks, following no pattern, rolling and jumping and strafing all the while. Fox imagined that he looked very foolish, but the assassin didn't even try to shoot at him during this time, and that made the effort worthwhile.

At one point, just as he was passing through the aisle that ended in the door to the control room, Fox aimed at the door handle, fired thrice, and rolled along the floor into the next aisle. He continued his mad acrobatics for two more rounds around the generator room, and then stole a glance at the door. One or more of his shots had been useful, for the lock was now disengaged, the burnt handle hanging limply by a single screw. Fox leapt out of the rows of engine blocks and started strafing along the wall again, as if to give his first tactic another try. The assassin played into this and exposed herself, preparing to fire. Fox's blaster was ready before hers was, and he sprayed the entire length of the catwalk with laser beams. When the cat-assassin back-flipped away to some unknown region of the second-floor, Fox rushed to the door and broke through.

He looked around the control room, didn't find what he wanted, raced to the lift in the back, activated it, and went to the second-floor control room. Fox saw the switch on the panel across the room from the lift, leapt for it, noticed out of the corner of his eye the second-floor door, leading to the balcony and from there to the catwalks, opened and blocked by his assassin, whose blaster was trained on him. At the last moment, he turned to look at his assassin, not with fear but with defiance, landed bodily on the side of the control panel, breaking three ribs, closed a fist around the switch, and threw it.

The two of them were suddenly immersed in total darkness. The assassin hesitated for a moment, surprised by the sudden change in visibility, but Fox knew that it wouldn't take long for her keen eyes to adjust. Just the same, he fired a spray of lasers in her general direction. She nimbly back-flipped outside onto the catwalk beyond, but her unadjusted eyes deceived her, causing her to land not on the catwalk itself, but on the railing to the side. She wavered for a moment, let out a shriek, and fell. There was the soft thud of her body landing on metal, the thunderous groan of the pistons protesting the presence of a foreign object in the machinery, and then nothing. Nothing but the ever-present chugging of the generator.

Fox got to his feet, clutching the side that had broken his fall. He reached over to pull the light switch, but thought it better that the aftermath of their battle should remain in darkness. He descended the lift and limped out into the generator room, unzipping his pack and pulling out the series of bombs. He tentatively crouched down in the center of the rows of engine blocks and began the slow process of setting the explosives.

VIII

Admiral Moss stood at the main bridge, arms folded behind his back, eyes jumping from one cluster of frenzied ships in the distance to another. In the background, the Cornerian naval ships floated motionless, their turbolasers firing at the Karzenian bombers that tried to break through the line of Arwings.

The battle was beginning to go his way. The apparent boost in morale the air force's Arwings had felt at the appearance of their unexpected aids had faded. Many Arwings had been destroyed, and a few of the newcomers, who were the best fighters Moss had ever seen short of the Star Wolf team he had hired, had actually been shot down.

No matter how many tricks Lylat had up its sleeves, no matter how many interceptors they shot down, Moss _still_ had the advantage of numbers. If his pilots got weary, short of supplies, or their ships damaged, Moss could order them to return to their designated docking bays and then dispatch fresh interceptors, psyched and ready for battle. The Cornerian pilots, on the other hand, had no one to take their places if they got tired or damaged. Moss only had to wait.

A request came to Moss for him to allow another squadron of interceptors to be dispatched. Moss inquired as to how many were still in the docking bay, and was shocked to see the numbers. The situation began to alter before his eyes. He couldn't afford to wait. The battle had to be ended. It had to be ended now.

"Order the capital ships to move forward," Moss said to the officers on the bridge. "Get those fighters to break and engage the naval frigates."

"But, sir!" one of the officers protested. "Those fighters don't look ready to break. They're continuing to fire on us, even though our shields are still strong."

"There you have it!" Moss said irritably. "Our shields are still strong! It won't matter if they don't break, just _move the fleet forward!_"

The _Harbinger_ began accelerating slowly. In response, the newcomer fighters turned away from the battle and started harassing the _Harbinger_ in greater numbers. One even released a missile that struck the ship just below the main viewport. Admiral Moss winced as the shields absorbed the missile's explosion.

"The shields aren't holding!" an officer cried in fear. "Those fighters are dealing our ship serious damage!"

"They will hold long enough," Moss reassured him. He looked out the viewport. Indeed, the number of Karzenian interceptors outside was far greater than the number of Arwings. This final charge, if not by scattering the enemy, would win the battle by attacking the heart of the opposition, the navy.

"Sir," another said, "Wouldn't it be wise for the _Harbinger_ to remain behind while the other capital ships confront that navy?"

"And let them pick us apart?" Moss exclaimed. "Absolutely not! We need the cover of the other capital ships, or else our shields…"

The intercom came to life, surprising all on deck. The visual hologram lit up. The face of a fox appeared.

"To the military and political leaders of Karzen," the fox said, grinning coldly. Moss recognized the introductory phrase. His stomach knotted up, but he continued to listen. "My name is Admiral Fox McCloud, informing you on behalf of Corneria that we are all sorry that we couldn't come to peace under more reasonable terms. As a result, expect a surprise within the next few minutes." Admiral McCloud held up a timer in his left hand, jiggled it, and ended the transmission.

Moss frowned. _What in Nerome's name…_

"_Sir!_" The officer's fearful cry, which was almost a scream, made Moss's stomach knot up even more. "We've just lost the secondary generator engines! _The shields are gone!"_

Admiral Moss didn't swallow. He didn't speak. He turned, arms still folded primly behind his back, and looked out the main viewport, where an enemy bomber had swooped in and sped away, leaving a bomb in its wake. He watched as the bomb drifted, almost harmlessly, straight towards the viewport of the main bridge; in his mind's eye, he saw his chess piece, a black queen, being struck aside viciously and triumphantly by a previously unseen white knight.

His mind's eye saw no more.

IX

"The _Harbinger_ is down! The _Harbinger_ is down! Prepare naval batteries to advance on remaining capital ships!"

All present and alive at the battle saw the _Harbinger's_ main bridge erupt in flames, the explosion spreading throughout the majority of the ship's front side. They then watched in awe as the engines failed, causing all magnetic seals to break, allowing the ship to be gradually pulled apart by the merciless vacuum outside. Far to its left, unseen by most, a solitary scout ship skirted the perimeter of the battle area and came to dock in one of Corneria's naval frigates.

"_Whoooooooo-heeeee-hoo!_" Bill Grey screamed on the intercom. "Big mama's resting in pieces! Take out her children, boys!"

Falco watched the death of the _Harbinger _with a smile. His quarry, Leon's Wolfen, stopped dodging and flew in a straight path.

"Your money is gone," Falco informed him. "If this truly isn't about revenge, as you claim, leave the battle now."

Leon's response was a surprising one. He laughed. "I'm a mercenary, old foe," he said. "My itinerary is always flexible, and my word can never be…"

He never finished the sentence. Falco, who had had a charged hyper beam fixed on Leon's unmoving tail, released several powerful shots that reduced Leon's Wolfen to ribbons. Falco nodded his head as his ship passed the destruction.

"_In pace requiescat_," he muttered impassively. "Old foe."

Krystal, Slippy, Alec and Katt would have had no problem finishing off Dorian Sly and Johnny Caiman, Leon's only surviving wingmen. But when Leon's ship disappeared from their sensors, they panicked, scattered, and were not seen again.

Tom and his fellow 'Fresh Fox' members cheered wildly at the sight of the _Harbinger's_ destruction. Bobo suggested that they set off a hundred fireworks back home to celebrate; Tiger countered by suggesting they set off a hundred fireworks here in space, using the Karzenian interceptors as firecrackers, which they did.

In the War Room on Corneria, officers cheered and applauded as the enemy flagship went down and as the navy subsequently advanced on the chaotic enemy lines. General Pepper fell back in his chair, letting out a heavy sigh and rubbing his hands over his fur, and then over his eyes, which had not seen decent sleep for days. He held his head in his hands, his eyes drifting aimlessly until they spotted a curious object on the floor across the War Room. After a bit of confusion, he recognized it as the insignia Fox had torn off his uniform earlier. Pepper chuckled lightheartedly, and then tore off his own insignia. He was getting old, and he decided that it was high time for retirement.

When Fox exited the scout ship aboard the _C.R.N._ _Shiloh_, the Cornerian navy flagship, he was whisked away to the infirmary, where his fractured ribs were treated. From the portable hologram set up at the foot of his bed, Fox watched the advance of the navy on the Karzenian capital ships, watched as the army's ships flanked the capital ships on either side, making it a quick and decisive battle. The Karzenian capital ships, leaderless, floated about in chaos and confusion, unable to gather their wits and surrender. When, at last, the number of Karzenian capital ships dwindled down to only two, the two of them stopped fighting back and offered to surrender.

Fox let his head sink in the pillow and let out a sigh of relief. On the ceiling of the infirmary, he imagined, were four antique Arwings, each taking a turn to sweep in close enough to allow him to see their faces. He saw Falco, the indifferent and brash pilot he always was. He saw Slippy, the youngest of the group, smiling enthusiastically and displaying a peace sign with his webbed fingers. He saw Peppy, his winking eyes full of wisdom and judgment, not lecturing the younger pilots but allowing them to gain similar wisdom themselves. He finally saw himself, not General Fox McCloud or Admiral Fox McCloud, but just plain Fox McCloud. His eyes were full of desire for adventure and excitement at what the future held.

The image had appeared before him for the last time. When at last it faded away, it was replaced by an image that he could not make out. He knew what it was nevertheless. It was the future, a time utterly unlike the past he had left behind, a time neither entirely comforting nor entirely foreboding. He shed a tear for the past that was gone forever, and embraced the future with a smile as he drifted to sleep.


	10. Balance of Power

Silence filled the hall. At the great conference table in the center, political and military leaders from many systems in the galaxy sat patiently, waiting for the final signatures on the peace treaty to be complete.

At the end of the table sat a crooked, feeble old creature, which had introduced itself as Dictator Vladimir Nerome of the Empire of Karzen. He narrowed his eyes at the only audience of the confidential meeting, standing behind the bar across the table from him. Standing there was Admiral Fox McCloud, his wife, Krystal, his son, Thomas, the Star Fox team, and the Fresh Fox team. Dictator Nerome glared hatefully at them, although powerless to do anything about their presence. All the power he had in the universe was actively being stripped away by the signatures on the cursed document being passed around the table.

The group in the back returned Dictator Nerome's glare, but their look was not entirely without hate, either. Earlier that day, there had been a mass burial all over Lylat. Soldiers and civilians alike were buried on the planets they died near, or on the planets their relatives wished for them to be buried. The group in the back had stood in silence at the foot of a graveyard on Katina spanning hundreds of miles. The eyes Fox now had fixed on Nerome's wrinkled face had earlier been fixed on the gravestone of Peppy Hare, where Fox had stood for a full twenty minutes, paying his respects. Tom, Alyssa, Tiger and Bobo had spent hours walking among the graves, spending a moment hovering over each one that bore the name of one of their friends who had died when Katina was assaulted. An assault approved by the man now sitting at the conference table. The Star Fox team standing in the group in the back had earlier walked the crumbling streets of Corneria, where reconstruction was far from beginning. All efforts on Corneria were going towards saving the wounded and burying the dead.

But the group in the back did not have the same helplessness in their eyes. Revenge could never quite be theirs, but justice could. When all the signatures were written on the peace treaty, Nerome would no longer be dictator, but prime minister, a position that would have virtually no power in the new government being established over the system of Karzen. All that remained of his military would be disbanded, and a "civil protection" force would reside in Karzen for the next twenty years, making the system a military state. But worst of all in Nerome's eyes, the systems he had conquered, his pride and joy from the last ten years of his reign, would be returned to their original owners, who would be fully compensated for their troubles. The "compensation" would take Karzen one hundred and eighty years to pay, according to a Cornerian accountant's calculations.

The signatures were complete. Copies were made and laminated, and those sitting at the table politely shoot hands with each other as they stood up to leave. Chancellor Jerek Bennigen of Corneria later said that Nerome's hand felt like a bundle of twigs when he shook it. Nerome's guards later commented that he had never looked so weak and old as when he left that meeting hall.

On their way out, Fox McCloud hurried to catch up with the last to leave, one President Bernard of Trengast. Bernard looked up at Fox with a look of passive despondency.

"You must be Admiral Fox McCloud," Bernard murmured. "I… I suppose I must thank you for what you did."

Fox smiled. "Eventually, someone would have had to do it," he said softly. "It was our duty as a free system to stop them in their tracks. I only wish it had been done sooner. Many… many people died."

Bernard nodded solemnly.

"But it's over," Fox said, trying to sound cheerful. "It's all over, and we can begin the process of going back to the way things were."

"Things will never go back to the way they were."

Fox recognized the truth in Bernard's words. He looked down at his right hand, which was one finger short. Behind him, he could hear the whirling of gears as Bobo Simon walked down the hall with his robotic leg.

"But one thing will," Fox said. "Freedom. Everyone who had been oppressed by Karzen can now be free again. It will take some time for us to recover, but we are free."

"For how long?" Bernard said, worry in his tired old eyes. "How long before the war-mongers in the Karzen system rise up to oppress the people of the galaxy again?"

Fox was jolted by the sudden recollection of a memory. _Now, after years of unbroken peace, the war mongering generals of the army and air force demand that we create a new branch of the military: a navy…_ Senator Peter Tarian had spoken those words. Oh, how long ago that was.

"Don't worry about that," Fox said at last. "The peace treaty we signed back in that hall assured that a balance of power will exist in the galaxy until all parties can recover. In the meantime, I believe it is necessary for us all to build up a standing military, one that is strong in all areas. Times have changed, and you're right, we cannot go back. Our only hope for continuing peace is to be prepared to protect it. This war was proof of that."

The End


End file.
